Cottage Garden Plans – Part One: listen carefully to Monty Don

I recently read a delightful poem entitled Live life in warm yellows – Tiffany Munguia and whilst I am pretty sure Tiffany hoped for a more meaningful message through her poem, the M’s were infact at the point of reading, living their lives in warm summer yellows. This vivid colour was not in my original cottage garden plans yet it’s presence this year has been prevalent through swathes of Crown Daisies self-seeded from last summer’s wonderful Wildflower Garden mix. I had decided to let these petals reign this year since the newly planted Cottage Garden had rather a few holes to fill. And so it was, bunches of golden daisies grew strong and tall and frankly claimed this spot as their own. However, we have had a gardening mishap. I thought this week you might like to read and see for yourself what happens when you choose to ignore the great gardening guru Monty Don’s expert advice, offered fairly frequently throughout summer Friday evenings. And I thought too you might like to know how The M’s intend to get over their latest gardening gaff. Join me today as I tell a summer garden tale…

When this story began back in February with a request from me for a pretty fence and cottage planting in front of beautiful Belle, the space looked a little sad and neglected…

I hoped the placing of a pretty painted picket fence together with a few moveable rusty supports and several evergreen shrubs, might create more of a focal point in the long bare winter months ahead. Once the M’s set to with our latest project in early March of this year, many weeks of hard toil created this and although I was happy beyond measure with our combined efforts, the Cottage Garden still had a way to go. Or should I say grow.

Growth in a garden is a slow process when you are watching each seed and plant eagerly and with June proving to be a wet one, I wondered if the Cottage Garden would indeed be a washout this year.

Yet I was reminded not for the first time the importance of both rain and shine in the creation of any garden and in time, Mother Nature complimented our hard work and patience and we were indeed rewarded.

Our Cottage Garden grew grand and plentiful and ooo’s and ahhh’s could be regularly heard from Mr M and I as we enjoyed our summer success. And our now much loved splash of golden yellow Crown Daisies grew ever tall and together with our glorious self-seeded Borage, looked to be the strongest of couplings. I chose to ignore Monty’s wise words “Stake and support tall plants before they are fully grown” since I believed these Crown Daisies would en-masse be, the self-supporting variety.

And for a while they were. Until disaster struck as down poured torrid rain and our yellow sea parted and these once strong and bold plants collapsed. Mr M was dragged away from his beloved sport on tv as I wailed and shrieked rather dramatically, the Cottage Garden was finished and summer over. He pondered and wandered and scratched his head as he quietly hatched a plan to put the catastrophe right.

“These here won’t recover,” he declared waving his arms over several soggy yellow mounds. “They will simply have to come out.” “But that will leave gaping holes everywhere!” I screeched, “and it’s only July, what will I do for the rest of summer?” I still have some way to go before I can safely say I’ve mastered the calm word. I spent a wasted hour with countless pieces of string trying to save my yellow insect haven to no avail. The weakened mounds were duly thinned out and then eventually removed entirely to leave the gaping holes I had feared.

After a strop and a sulk during which I was reminded Mr M was not infact responsible for the adverse weather conditions and he was simply trying to find a suitable solution, I decided to see the potential in this little episode. Maybe it was time for a rethink of our Cottage Garden plans and even a rejig of plants in wrong places. Perhaps this was infact the perfect opportunity to justify the purchase of several new late summer flowering varieties the space lacked. Perhaps a homemade obelisk wouldn’t go amiss and might aid with winter visual interest. There appear to be a few wooden pallets sitting around waiting for their moment. Of course, I’ve yet to share the wooden structure nugget with Mr M, I wanted you to be the first to know.

Join me next week to see how we get on putting the collapsed Cottage Garden back together and I’ll show you too where the lavender hedge and sweet peas are thriving beautifully in preparation for crafts to come later this year. Until then…x

By the way, if you missed the original stories of Belle and the Cottage Garden plans, you can read Parts One, Two or Three by clicking on the appropriate links. And if you would like to see more photos of Belle and The Cottage Garden follow me on Instagram for regular updates.