Back after skipping a week — taking my son and his friends on a birthday trip into the city took longer to recover from than anticipated. Much like a gaggle of twelve-year-olds, my garden also has no off switch. July has arrived.

One — The West Bed Jungle, Rehabilitated

Before and after shots of the flower bed on the west side of the house, up against the terrace. It probably hadn’t been touched in close to two decades and had gradually developed into a full jungle situation. The before photo I’m showing here is relatively tame — more than a month passed before I started clearing, and by then everything was easily shoulder-high.

All the raspberry canes got relocated into the berry rows (row 2 done, third row in development), leaving a hodgepodge of nettles, pink phlox, invasive goldenrod, and volunteer baby plums to sort through. The phlox moved to the back, a lot of garden soil got hauled in, and the west bed cottage garden was officially christened. Currently it’s a mixture of whatever I had leftover that needed somewhere to grow on — freesia, ranunculus, godetia, strawflower, winter-hardy asters, lavender, balloon flower — but I’m hoping a permanent cast will develop over the years.

Two — The Midsummer Rose Has Fallen

…for now. Before and after shots of the midsummer rose that I mentioned was trying to eat the house. Please notice that it was also blocking our one and only emergency escape ladder from upstairs. Yeah, our choice over the past two decades increasingly became “in case of fire, please plunge into the wall of thorns”.

“Just chop it to ankle height or so. Buzz cut, straight across. I’m serious,” I told my husband.

He gave me a doubting look. “I’m not trying to kill it,” he said.

“It’s cute that you think you can,” I reassured him.

So there it is, looking grumpy and shorn, but no doubt already working on new shoots out of pure spite. With any luck, I’ll be able to keep it slightly more in check this decade.

Three — The Harvest Begins

When I was a kid, my mom grew a LOT of squash and sent me around the block to “gift” the neighbors with plastic bags full of it. I know many of you share this memory, and the aversion to cucurbits it created. However, sometime around junior high I developed an addiction to Carl’s Jr. fried zucchini, and I have craved it deeply since moving out here. This is the year I decided to do something about it. That’s right: I’m going to reclaim zucchini. Oh yes.

Also shown: my tiny harvests of redcurrants (22g, because the blackbirds got there first) and whitecurrants (66g, because the plant apparently hates me). This was balanced out by the pinkcurrant bush, which delivered 1660g this year. Its production has been climbing steadily, and I’m starting a better feeding and care regime for the berries this season. Let’s see how much more this plant can churn out given a bit of attention.

Four — Fashionably Late Foxglove

My luck keeping normal garden foxgloves alive has been middling at best. As a result, I looked into different foxglove species in the hope that some might do better in my conditions than others. In 2022, I planted big-flowered foxglove (Digitalis grandiflora) in the flower field and waited. And waited some more. And eventually gave up, figuring it had also fallen prey to the foxglove curse.

Only to have it pop up four years later, this spring. They apparently don’t self-seed well here, so these are most probably my original scattered seeds, taking their sweet time before finally showing themselves. A nice surprise — but very much a surprise.

Five — The Austins Return

My Austin roses took longer than usual to wake up this year, but it was a rough winter. ‘The Poet’s Wife’ (the yellow one) finally leafed out just a couple of weeks ago and immediately started tossing out buds in a huge rush. Her neighbor, ‘Scepter’d Isle’ (the pink one), followed suit not long after. Strangely enough, the hardiest of them, ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, still hasn’t shown her face. I’m not calling it a loss yet, though — I’m seeing more rose leaves as the days go on, and there’s still plenty of summer left.

Six — The Dahlias Arrive

The first of the dahlias started blooming this past week. Dahlia ‘Impression Famoso’, a cute purple-and-white collarette, started the parade and has plenty of buds still forming. ‘Sunlady’ — a classic yellow — popped up not long after. And then there’s the small unnamed one with orange-tinged petals that looks sort of like a creamsicle, which I got for 2€ at the store while buying more soil. It’s just happy to be there, and I’m happy to have it.

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Six on Saturday is hosted by Jim over at Garden Ruminations — go see what everyone else’s July is doing.