Next year

the garden will be sooo much better

Next year the Clerodendrum Bungei

will have spread more and more in the border with the Telekia speciosa .

following on from the blue Campanula lactiflora, (above) and adding a late punch to that display, since the Telekia seems to keep flowering for ages. Though I love its dark seedheads too:

and it (the Clerodendrum ) will also begin to take off in the Felicia Bed - which will be great, won’t it??

Adding great blobs of crimson to sharpen everything up. And because you can’t have too much Clerodendrum. Especially if you let some grow tall

and cut others to the ground in spring, so those flower at about three or four feet.

Sorry to go on about a plant I love but which is strangely expensive to buy and has a popping up everywhere habit once you’ve got it. So, to go on:

Next year I will find lots of good places to put good pots like this:

I have recently rediscovered terracotta pots. The weight stops things from falling over (quite so easily….) and they do look good. Though why ever anyone thought this was a good idea is totally beyond me and accounts for my years of doubt about terracotta pots.

And next year I will have more of these flowers in more pots. Somewhere..

Lush. Agapanthus Midnight Star

And

We will have subdued the ground elder further, and filled the gaps with more truely blue grey hostas. And maybe some alliums..? The hostas will disguise the grotty leaves and the flowers will be so much better than the hosta flowers. Which annoy me.

The Hosta Walk

This bed of Geum Totally Tangerine and Geranium PATRICIA 'Brempat' will fill out and flower together. Imagine!

Next year these Rodgersias

will not wilt in heat and drought but do their usual magnificent best.

Or better, because we removed the privet which you can see was competing with them. And it will, of course, rain gently every night.

Next year these hydrangeas will grow! Not just survive by the skin of their teeths.

and

I will grow these again - but plant the bulbs (corms?) in succession. Mind you, they have kept going and going so far this year. Weeks! And they are scented (slightly).. Acidanthera (Acidanthera murielae syn. Gladiolus murielae)

And I’ll do this again:

Shelves full of Calibrachoa. Needing watering every day, whether it rains or not, because the shelves keep them dry. Love them though.

And, of course, we’ll have some Nemesia Wisley Vanilla because they are essential and flower all summer:

I will get rid of every one (ish) of the pale, miserable, seeding like mad Eupatoriums

and replace them with the super dark purple ones which will somehow, miraculously, have got much much cheaper.

Super dark purple one

And, you know, it will be a blissful summer next year. The weather will be perfect with gentle warm sunshine shining on all our visitors. And we will be full of energy and bounce. There will be pollinators everywhere, though not so much the million wasp nests. We will all be so happy.

Oh, and I’ll have spent the whole winter tidying up stuff like this

and I will have acquired hundreds and hundreds of paying (and non paying) subscribers!!!

Because of this? —