Six of the Best – Highlights from My Garden in 2020

I thought I’d end the year with a bit of a pictorial romp through some of my favourite bits of the garden this year.

Tulip Fever

First up have to be my tulips. They were absolutely tip-top this year. I managed to stop the squirrels stealing any (well many!) and had some successes with my colour combinations.

You can see a much more detailed blog about my favourite combinations here.

I particularly liked the fragrant double flower of Blue Diamond, a purple tulip which I’ve planted with the shocking pink Doll’s Minuet in my big wicker basket. The hot orange tulip, Orca, was also a sizzling stunner, planted with a purply black partner.

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Synaeda Amor which is a soft blue pink, and the handsome velvety Blue Wow looked great together. Especially in a handsome tapering large pot.

It wasn’t all about colour combinations, sometimes the planter and plant just worked beautifully too. This year an ancient, scruffy aluminium bucket looked lovely with the tulip Finola.

For this year I’ve planted a completely different set of tulips. Only time will tell whether they’re hits or misses – but isn’t that the fun of gardening?

My New Shady Bed

I have a north facing scruffy fence which greets you as you walk into my garden from the patio. So a big project for 2020 was sorting out this area.

I created a whole new shady border using a white and green planting scheme. You can see a detailed blog with all the plant combinations here.

I should add it’s by no means perfect. It’s still a work in progress – only today I was thinking I must plant some white hellebores to add some Winter interest. However, on the whole I’m really pleased. It looks so much better, and in a year or so, will hopefully have really settled in!

Here Come The Girls

My ‘girls’ – 10 Annabelle Hydrangeas planted under the Catalpa Bignonioides Nana, or Indian Bean Tree Nana – were a glorious triumph this year. I can get quite emotional about them as they are so utterly beautiful.

Even now that Winter is here, there’s a skeletal beauty to them which is still providing structure and interest.

A Tale of Two Ponds

In May I tried to create a pond in a barrel. And in theory it was brilliant. It looked the part, creating a lovely water feature on my patio. There was nothing wrong with the method I used, you can see it here

However, some strange substance kept oozing out of my barrel (which had been bought on Ebay). This threatened anything living in the barrel. I changed the water muliple times but that didn’t help. So in the end, I ambandoned the barrel idea.

But I still had the pond plants – what to do about them?

Pond 2

To solve this dilemma I created a tiny pond at the bottom of my garden, using a cheap rigid base bought from my local garden centre for about £20. I did this very rapidly one afternoon. The hole was dug and filled in about two hours!

I moved some rocks, ferns, grasses, geraniums and a hosta I had elsewhere in the garden, to soften and disguise the edges. Considering how quickly it was all done, the end result is really quite good! Yes, the pond base does look a bit shiny in the places where you can see it, but the wildlife doesn’t care; it has been home to three frogs and visisted by countless birds ever since it was created.

Some Like It Hot

My venture into hotter coloured planting was another highlight of 2020. It came about when I revamped a corner of my garden which really wasn’t working. I used this as an opportunity to try the oranges, yellows and reds which just wouldn’t work elsewhere in my beds and borders.

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The jury is out on whether the area works; I’ve a lot more to do. I plan to add a heap of containers filled with more exotic bananas, gingers etc. To do this I will need to master the art of over-wintering such plants. But that’s the joy of gardening – there’s always something new to learn.

Patio Fairytale

I have a vision for my patio, and in 2020 it came one step closer to reality. The Erigeron Karvinskianus  in particular did what I’d hoped it would do when I planted it – smothering the cracks between the paving. The small daisy-like plant has a big impact wherever you put it, and on the patio it creates an ethereal effect. The whole space looks like a fairy kingdom. I love it!

I have a very sunny flower bed which curves around the patio on two sides. I’m a very informal gardener, as you will have gathered! My vision for the patio is that it should be hard to tell where it ends and the bed begins.

Well, I really think I cracked it this year! I had trouble myself sometimes spotting what was in the bed and what wasn’t.

The overflowing planting, Erigeron and masses of pots created a lovely setting (well I think!). It was awash with bees, butterflies, other insects and birds for months…glorious!

So that’s it! Some of my favourite gardening bits of 2020. Like so many of us, I’ve found my garden to be an absolute sanctuary during this dreadful year and a source of boundless pleasure. I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog, as I’ve charted the highs and lows – my little triumphs and trials!

I’m now going to have a two week break from blogging for Christmas, but I’ll be back with you on January 10th, in my wellyboots and gardening gloves, ready for action! In the meantime, all the very best to you and your families this Christmas. See you in 2021…

Louise xxx