The late spring potting shed

Do I change the title? It is suddenly summer after all. For some reason I have been hiding away from this website and blog. Possibly because since I plotted this picture story the whole country has endured a heatwave and a drought.

Things are frying to a crisp before my very eyes.

And I was reflecting this morning that I created this particular garden for a different climate. One that doesn’t get exposed to a heatwave each June that lasts more than three weeks.

I do not water my garden.

I water my vegetables. But the whole place was created as a no watering Mediterranean centred garden of gentle intervention.

So no watering after the first year of planting. No fertiliser, improvements, barely even mulching.

And sadly this is proving to be challenge. The heat stress on the shrubs! Ugh.

Do you remember the old days when you studied the best plants for your garden and worried about how frost tolerant they were?

Who worries now that this particular mauve phlomis on the right can manage a good week of minus 12C when you want to know if it will cark it when it gets to over 30C for three weeks?

It’s too big a problem for me right now. So I seek solace in taking pictures on my new iPhone and delving into ridiculous Instagram reels.

And as I am hiding from the heat, why not write a bit to let you know how all looked a few weeks ago before the heat dome settled in Europe and didn’t shift?

This is the fun stuff in the potting shed. That insane factory of production in March and April and even early May.

Crops galore.

Crammed.

All these varieties. Flowers and veg.

Each morning bringing out the trays of plants and giving them their sun and wind. Then moving them back at night.

Eventually there is absolutely no room anywhere – trays on the paths, trays perched on rocks around the shed. Dahlias bursting out of their pots.

I love that time. The time of hope.

Little by little the benches start to get cleared and everything gets into the garden.

And suddenly June arrives and you find yourself doing this…

Gazing with delight and relief at the cleared out factory. From now on nature has to take over. I’ve brought the seeds into life and sent them on their way.