What a summer it was ! We had one of the worst droughts since a long long time and that in combination with constant high temperatures. As you might have read in my previous update, we replanted the garden this spring after the big structural works in the garden. So did everything survive, or not ? Let’s have a tour around the garden.

Let’s start with the big chunk of ‘new’ garden around the new pathways and terrace. Well I can tell you that seen the circumstances these newly planted areas did quite well. Even the more shady parts with a lot of ferns had little fall-out. I did water this part of the garden about 4 times throughout the summer period to give the plants a little bit of help. The most important was keeping the new big Acer palmatum ‘bloodgood’ alive and that worked out pretty well. Of course it helped that it is positioned in the shade of the walnut tree.

For the other parts I planted again mostly perennial, rather drought resistant plants. And even a pretty amzining thing happened. Because of the works the soil got disturbed a lot, which is not really a good thing, but this time there was a huge silver lining : verbena bonariensis seedlings popped up everywhere. It’s one of my favorites in the garden, so you can imagine how I love the display they are still putting on.

All in all the new planting scheme was quite good, but I do have to fill in some gaps here and there. I also need to give some more attention to the Dahlias in the garden. They were badly placed and a bit uncared for, resulting in a rather disappointing display. Better next time.

Another challenging feature in the garden this summer was the small corten steel pond. Since it is hardly shaded it can heat up very fast and become a boiling algae mess. Luckily an umbrella did the trick and Bambi & Lulu, the fish, are doing great. In the meanwhile also Willy the marsh frog moved in and loves a bit of sunbathing on the edge of the pond. The water stayed clear throughout the summer, so I am quite pleased with that. Our main pond also didn’t overheat this summer and mostly had a temperature of 24°C…perfect temperature to cool down and swim lanes.

What about the vegetable garden ? Well, with this heat and drought, there were clearly winners and losers. All what was cabbage and root vegetables was not really great. Also the beans didn’t had a great year. But oh boy, the tomatoes gave so much (and still do). So did the bell peppers and even the cucumbers did great. It is also the first year we have a nice grape and apple harvest.

So now summer is almost over and, luckily, the rain is back. Soon(?) works start to convert the garden atelier in a home office. So this will surely impact the views in the garden. But that is for another time.