End of Month View - August 2012

We have been away for a few days so I have a very busy day tomorrow.  First job is to make friends with the cat!  Then I have lots of dead heading and general snipping to do so I'm giving you long shots instead of close ups! 



I have started with this view of the front garden as I have spent the week wandering passed lanes full of wonderful orange flowers.  I want to plant crocosmia next to pink hydrangea and fuschia ... this combination looked lovely in the Welsh gardens.  I have the plants, I just need to empty a bit of border but I can't decide where.
I need to feed my geraniums and chop them back a bit.  The flowers are beautiful but the plants have grown straggly. Now is the time to take geranium cuttings but I am leaving it a bit longer as I'm enjoying the blooms.

Marigolds with Black-eyed Susans

The yellow border is doing very well.  The Tagetes not only look and smell nice they help to reduce garden pests.  They act as a natural deterrent against root eating nematodes and over the course of a few years they are known to reduce weeds such as ground ivy, bindweed and couch grass!  I'm saving ALL this year's seeds!

My very ancient cat is an extremely vocal Bengal.  She swore her head off and demanded food the moment we got home even though she had been perfectly well looked after.  She didn't eat the food, she was just proving who was boss!  It didn't go to waste though as this little hedgehog happily ate his fill while Isis and I sat and watched him.

For more End of Month views visit The Patient Gardener.