The Mitcheldean Garden 2025
Transitioning Part 2

This page is part of a series of garden blogs from 2025. Click here for the index.

These days, the flat area around the bungalow, even without the roses is something of a 'show pony'. The real country garden starts above the patio, much of the soil is from the original meadow and when the rain comes on time, shrubs and trees especially rocket upwards. Writing this in the first week of June, only the dahlias have yet to be planted out and they are mostly 'tired'. Thereafter I can look forward to three or four months of non-stop cutting back to keep the place presentable knowing that sooner or later it will prove to be more than I can manage.

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Every year, without fail, the leylandii hedges have to get a hair cut before the end of May. I use an electric 'hedge cutter' which slices through the young shoots although I have allowed the hedge to bulge out slightly so that the muntjac fence has become barely visible. It looks quite tidy now, but in deference to my age I now have more and shorter sessions on it. The platform, an essential safety device, can be seen lying on its side.

We knew that these standard roses were coming to the end of the road, but not having the time to dig them up we just left them. Now the basic roses have grown up naturally and gave us a fine display this year. They can be seen on the left in the second picture. The bags contain leaves for the main dahlia bed in the foreground which had already been emptied of tulips and given a good digging.

It's best not to look too closely at the summer house but it's an attractive 'prop' even if we have never used it for anything except as a store. Peonies seem to prefer flat areas to slopes and there are several here which we planted a few years ago and are now well established. Next to it is a semi-wild rose, supposedly a  'Rhapsody in Blue'.

Under the rose is this spectacular clematis, the flowers of which gradually unfold. The table is falling apart and the bench timber is slowly rotting! In the meantime it looks delightful.

Some years back, Yuehong planted some lupins and sweet rocket here, since when they have been left to their own devices. From which you will correctly deduce that this is the point beyond which our time and money budgets are stretched to breaking point.

Peonies, arguably, have the most beautiful flowers of any garden shrub. We have a mixture of singles and doubles spread through the garden, and now in early June, they are at their best.

Proper supports cost real money, we use canes and string! The complexity of the pink variety proves to be too much for the camera.

We did try 'grow your own'  but it's a thankless task on the slope with hordes of birds and insects waiting to pounce. However, I do try to have a row or two of my favourite runner beans. One way or another they got left out while I was caring for Yuehong and these are a job lot which came from the Abergavenny steam rally. They have all survived and it remains to be seen how they crop and what they taste like. Yuehong's tiny Braeburn apple flowered profusely as I showed in an earlier blog and now it's covered in small fruit. I have no experience of such things but it does look like a pre-teen trying to have a baby!

Click here for the next part (to come) and click here for the 2025 index.