Gone August: The highs and lows of running an open garden.

Once a year I feel ashamed of the garden and it is always in August. There comes a week when nothing goes right. The garden has ‘Gone August’.  100 years ago, when the family spent a full month in the big house, no wonder the gardeners relied on bedding. The hedgerows and trees take on a tired look and the delicate blue and pink perennials and shrubs go over, sometimes not very attractively. The colours of autumn arrive – dirty pinks and strong orange and yellow. They will glow in the September light but the flat harshness of an August day does not show them at their best.

  Grubby colours in harsh light. Yeuch! Scroll down for some more uplifting images!

The weather knows all this. So, we get drought, torrential downpours and richocheting temperatures to add to our troubles. Both of our mowers, challenged by incessant mowing of wet grass early in the year are getting more and more temperamental and the continued strong growth of hedges and grasses in the meadows means the job list is stretched. On top of this, we have lots of visitors who deserve a friendly stress-free welcome and many of the team take a well-earned break this month. ‘You shouldn’t give holidays in August’ people tell me to my moaning but I think they work incredibly hard all year and many have family commitments and basically, they need the break.

This feeling used to last the month when we first started out but now we have a better structure and some student labour to help out so I have cut it down to about one week. I am very aware that, although we see the gardens all the time and carry memories in our head of spring and summer, a few of our visitors will only give us one chance to persuade them that this is a garden worth telling their friends about (and we need that, for sure.) So last week, when the feeling started to creep in that we were not on top of the extra work, I pulled in help from wherever I could get it. 

This Sunday, the Meet the Artist day as part of the textile exhibition was a great event and although I chuntered about the odd weed (cheeky ragwort in the meadows mostly) I felt we could head on into Autumn confidently. 

Next year, I hope my July diary entry will read: ‘Dont forget the gardens will ‘Go August’. GET PLANNING. No-one wants to hear you fretting, thank you!’ (Best Mary Poppins' voice)

On the upside here are some Good Things about August:


The Long Border (but see a few weeds sneaking onto the gravel)

Agapanthus flourish between the greenhouses and seed themselves here, adding to their number year on year.

The greenhouse goes bonkers with lush growth and produce.

Late Annuals in the Pickery start to take over from cornflowers and calendulas.

The beautiful wildflowers left in the meadows are swamped by insects: Scabious, Wild Marjoram and Knapweed in particular. Butterfly colonies are good. The swallows are clustering overhead ready to make the most of the insect feast as it rises from the grasses and trees.