August. The days have been hot (again. Finally) the sun beat down mercilessly and the garden is slightly cooked.
The orderly and fruitful times of June are long gone. Back then (it seems a long time ago in the flower beds) the greens were fresh and verdant, the herbaceous perennials were neat little rosettes of leaves and there wasn't a weed to be found. The first roses were just beginning to bloom too - just the odd flower - bringing with them the promise of midsummer and all its bounty.
Now... decay and chaos is everywhere - the last strawberries and blackberries, forgotten about, rot quietly in the kitchen garden; I can't keep up with deadheading the roses and couch grass or petty spurge pop up in every spot missed by the winter mulch.
Brown seed heads hang over the beds; aquilegia rustles in the breeze, alchemilla and feverfew slowly dry out, their fresh greens and whites turning to papery ochres.
I am reminded, as I cut back hundreds of feverfew stems to encourage a second flush in September, that the Chelsea Chop is not just something to be spoken of on gardener's question time. I am reminded, as I tease out every last alchemilla mollis seed head (before they spread themselves even further), that if I had chopped back every other of these maddening perennials in May they would just be coming into flower now and I would have stretched the beauty further. I am reminded, as I pull out 6ft tall foxgloves, scattering thousands of seeds as I do, that if I had removed these king spires I would have been rewarded by a flurry of princes: shorter, yes, but greater riches for the hungry bees and not over by the start of July.
I have learnt my lesson. Next year I will chop.
I shouldn't worry about the bees though. The clover in the lawn under the apple trees keeps flowering no matter how much it's mown. The trumpet like flowers on the nasturtiums constantly have little furry bottoms poking out and the lavender and borage is awash with the lazy drone of happy, contented bees drinking their fill. The echinops and cerinthe have just started blooming too, sure favourites of our buzzy friends.
Like the bees, frantically consuming, there is no rest for the gardener either. There are seeds to collect, weeds to pull, courgettes to harvest. The raspberries need netting this week and I have to tie in the sweet peas before they take over the bed. I'm sowing seed and taking cuttings too, whilst putting together a shopping list for autumn bulbs. It never stops.
As time ticks by and those seeds pop up and cuttings root, the garden will come back into its own. Cooler mornings at the start of autumn bring freshness, the plants flopping chaotically now will have a second flush and dahlias, sedums and cobea will have their moment. August always feels a bit like a battleground, an awful lot of work for little reward
And of course, next year, I will chop.
