August Cottage Garden Tour - Everything Flowering In Late Summer

Hello everyone and welcome to my cottage garden tour here in the month of August. So I've got a lot to update you on. My cottage garden tour is a little bit later than I like to do them in the month, just purely because the weather's been so crazy. It's either been raining constantly and I haven't been able to get out here, or it's been so hot that I just really haven't felt like coming out either. Mostly the latter. In fact, we've had a very very hot and dry August. All summer in fact has been very hot and dry, so it's not been the best for gardening to be honest with you. But now that we finally got some relief with the rain, I really thought it'd be time to finally give you folks that tour. So if you're new here, definitely consider subscribing and let's jump straight into this. First of all, I do want to show you that my asters are just starting to come into flower. This one here is called Aster Fellowship and as you can see it's just got the little buds on it now, which I'm so excited about. I really really can't wait for these asters to come into flower. We've got some that I will be showing you, but yeah, these ones are nearly nearly there. Also look at my poor hydrangea. Yeah, it's got absolutely devastated by this heat. It's not really the best position for it to be honest with you. It does get a lot of sun over here in the sort of early part of the day, so what I'm going to do is in autumn, I'm going to try and move this hydrangea and then my other one that's over here, and I'm going to try and put them in the shady border which is all the way over in this side of the garden. So yeah, there's definitely some work that needs to be done there because they've suffered so much, but what are you going to do? It's all lessons learned at the end of the day. Now over here, I think in my last tour I showed you that I'd removed my giant yellow achillia and replaced it with some achillia terracotta and also Aster Monch. The Aster Monch are doing incredible as you can see. They're really filling up this space and going nice and bushy and flowering incredibly well. The achillia terracotta has started to fade now, which is a bit of a shame, but you know, nothing lasts forever in the garden as we know. But I do like this little area. I think it's going to look really good next year when the plants are a bit taller. So right now everything's quite low down, but they'll get a little bit taller and bushier next year which I think is going to make this space look nice. We also do still have some Phlox Blue Paradise in flower, which is good. This one has just lasted so long after it got its Chelsea chop. So yeah, I'm really happy that this has decided to just keep going and it's starting to fade now and you can see all the heat damage on it. Because yeah, here in England, I mean I'm sure a lot of my American viewers think of us as just constant rain, but that's not been the case this summer. It's been one of the hottest and driest on records and I actually live in one of the driest parts of the country. So yeah, the plants have suffered a lot. Even my drought tolerant plants have had a bad time to be honest with you. So I'm grateful that it started raining finally. I feel like that's rejuvenated the garden a bit. Here we do have the Perovskia Blue Spire, which is kind of leaning over a bit. I think the rain kind of made it a bit heavy. It's usually pretty upright actually, which is good because I had problems with that last year, but this year I made sure to stake it properly, which is definitely good. So yeah, the Perovskia Blue Spire, which I think has gone back to being Salvia now. It changes around a lot. I think it's Salvia yangi. I'm probably still going to call it Perovskia for a while. The classifications are important to me, but also at the same time I want to go with the name that people are going to understand the most. So Perovskia it is for now, because I'm sure we can mostly tell what that is. Here at the back, we at the back, at the bottom I should say, we still have some lavender and flower. In fact, it's still looking pretty good. Obviously, you can see a lot of it has faded, but overall there's still a lot of flowers on it, which I'm very, very pleased with. So yeah, definitely a good one. Looking very, very nice. The pathway here, as you can see, is just so hard to get by. So next year I need to move this lavender back a bit, give ourselves a bit more room. Up here you can see actually I planted some new astrantia. Now I used to have astrantia in my garden. You might have seen it in my tours last year, but it just never really came back too well. It kind of got crammed out by a lot of the other stuff in the big flower beds. So this time around I have planted it on its own in this little corner. There was a nepeta here last time, but I thought it'd be better with the astrantia. After all, if you know my garden, you know I've got a lot of nepeta, so it just made sense to me, honestly, to have something a bit different that I really like. I think this variety is Roma. Yeah, it's a very nice one. The birds are having a lot of fun liking to watch me recording the video, as you can see. There's the aviary. Yeah, they're all having a very good time enjoying the weather. Now it's cooled down a bit. This fella here has actually pretty much stopped flowering, as you can see. This is salvia king sensation, but it's still looking really good. I still really, really like this one. Also, we do have this sort of daisy-like plant here, which I actually got from the Beth Chateau Gardens, very famous here in England. But I don't know what this plant is called. I've genuinely forgotten. It's not an aster. It's a very early flowering one. It's been flowering for so, so long. It's probably one of the longest flowering, most prolific plants in my entire garden. It just doesn't stop flowering. So if you know what the name of this is, please do comment down below to let me know, because I genuinely have forgotten. But yeah, it's not an aster. It's not a shasta daisy or anything like that. It's something different. It just looks like a daisy, but yeah, it's really, really nice. It's definitely one of my favourites. Why don't we head up this way to show you, and I'll be able to show you this properly next month. Look, one of my favourite asters, which I think is Little Ness, is just starting to flower. And look how big and pushy these are. Oh my goodness, they're huge. They're massive. I mean, there's my birdbath in the back, completely dwarfed now. Yeah, this is going to look fantastic when it is fully in flower next month. So the September tour is one not to miss, because whilst a lot of things are fading, there's also a lot to look forward to in September. Speaking of something which has pretty much just come into flower, well actually first, I'll show you this amazing geranium rosanne, which I actually cut back in, I think, late July. And as you can see, it's looking so good. I mean, it's gone really bushy. It's gone really, like, ball-shaped, which I love. It's no longer, like, on the floor and really straggly. So yeah, I'm really, really pleased with this one. I think it looks so, so good. Definitely one of my favourite geranium rosannes in the entire garden. Also, just in front of me, I have the rudbeckia dhimi, which is completely in flower now. I can't remember if my last tour, it was maybe just coming to flower, but it looks stunning now here with the agastache blue fortune. I mean, what a great combination and mix that is. I love it so much. We've got the Kalamagrosis carforester grass there as well. So yeah, I mean, I love rudbeckia. It's one of my favourites. It has struggled a lot during the summer. I mean, this is not what I would call a drought-tolerant plant, to be honest. I always thought it was supposed to be drought-tolerant, but in all honesty, this thing is constantly flailing over when it gets too hot and looking very sorry for itself. So I really don't know. You know, like I said, I thought it was supposed to be drought-tolerant, but I don't think it is. I think it actually likes a bit more shade. Not completely shady, obviously. It does like sun, but yeah, I think it's not huge on the constant sun and constant heat. So anyways, the thing that I was going to show you is the beautiful, if I can focus on it because of the sun, the beautiful Helianthus lemon queen, which is huge. It's like seven foot tall. Yeah, it's massive. I mean, it's really, really, if I move back a bit, it's really, really bushy, as you can see, and it looks absolutely fantastic. I mean, it's so tall, so great, so many flowers on it, which is really, really nice. So yeah, this one I'm really happy with, and because I staked it early on, it's managed to stand upright, which is good because last year this thing was constantly flopping over and I constantly had to like stake it with little stakes. So the fact that this year this thing is just prolifically standing tall with these beautiful yellow flowers, chef's kiss. I'm very, very pleased with this thing. I mean, it just looks wonderful. It's really loved by the pollinators. As you can see, they're just heading onto it now. Yeah, a really good one. Over in this flower bed back here, where the rudbeckia are, we can see the Achillea coffer of gold is starting to fade now. Seed heads are starting to die. That's fine though, honestly, this thing has lasted for so long. I just think, you know, the dead seed heads look good even. I mean, they're going to look really nice over winter. I've actually seen some people cut these back really late and get a second flowering. I'm not going to try that. I just don't feel the need to. I think it's fine leaving it as a structural interest. And this plant is a bit of a pain anyways, because it never wants to stay upright. So next year I've got some ideas about how I can maybe stake it and get it standing more upright. I might even try a Chelsea chop on it. I don't know if you can do that, but if you can, I'm going to attempt that because this thing was a pain this year trying to keep it upright. It was a massive pain. So we can only hope that we'll be able to do that. Let's head back around this way. Here we've got the Physostegia. I always pronounce it wrong. It's the obedient plant. I believe this one is called... I really don't remember. I have to try and look it up. But it's very, very pretty, as you can see. Very pretty. I mean, it's starting to fade a bit. It's been flowering for ages now. Well, like a month, which is still really good. And yeah, it's definitely done its job. It definitely is very pretty. Kind of decent size height as well. So yeah, this is a fun one. I do like it a lot. And the color is very nice. It's sort of light pink. I don't have too much of that. Definitely what I'm enjoying. Over in this flower bed, still looking really good. The Echinops and the Echinaceas. We've also got the Oreganum down here. This one is Oreganum Herrenhausen, which is one of my favorites. I just think it looks so good. It's started to fade a bit now, but it'll keep some good interest. I do think probably a lot of things have stopped flowering earlier than they should have, purely because of this heat. Purely because of how hot it's been. You know, so much has suffered, even trying to keep it watering... keep it watered, sorry. So yeah, some things have stopped flowering a bit earlier. A lot of the Echinaceas as well kind of got crisped up, so I had to cut them back. So you can see there's not as many as there was, but there are more coming through. I mean look, we can see the little heads where they're starting to emerge from. So I'm looking forward to getting more. Echinops 2 is starting to fade a bit, but we can kind of actually take these little fluffy bits off. If we do that. A little trick for you here. Just take all of that off. There we go. And boom. It looks as good as new. So that's something actually I recommend you do. Get rid of all these little... it's a bit painful, so maybe do this with gloves, not hands. But you know, I'm a professional. Don't try this at home as they say on TV. But yeah, there you go. That looks so much better compared to the one in the middle. So definitely do that. Give them a little rub and get the horrible bits off, and they'll continue looking good for ages after that. So build a trip for your Echinops there. The Echinacea White Swans are all looking pretty good. Still very prolific in flower, so I think they're actually doing a little bit better, perhaps, than what we've come to expect from the other Echinaceas. So Echinacea White Swan is a good one. A few changes over here as well. We've got some Veronicastrum Fascination, which I used to have my garden ages ago, but I finally brought it back in free this time. What was here? I think there's some random Liatris. No, actually, tell you what. I remember what was here in this little gap here, which is why it looks like there's like a circle. There was the Sambucus tree. So I really, really wanted to keep this tree in this gap, but unfortunately that's something I couldn't do. And the reason why I couldn't keep that is because it was just getting too big for this flower bed. It would have absolutely eventually absorbed the whole thing and covered all of these perennials. So I decided this wasn't the best spot for a tree that could get that big and especially bushy. So I decided to move it away. Unfortunately, I gave it away. It's fine. But yeah, so I instead planted more perennials here. We've got the Veronicastrum Fascination, which has stopped flowering now, but you know what? It'll look really good next year when it comes up. And of course, it's a nice little trifecta of Rudbeckias. It'll look really good. So I'm very excited about that. We can also see my Geranium Dreamland is just coming back in a flower now. Like I said, I cut this thing back, but it didn't really want to come back with flowers because of the fact it's been so dry and hot. So it's really suffered. But thankfully, it is finally looking a bit rejuvenated, which is good. So I'm very excited to see this actually return with some flowers soon. We also have the Agastache Blue Fortune, which is looking really nice. So there's actually three of them here. And yeah, they're really good, really bushy. Definitely they've enjoyed this weather actually quite a lot. So they've definitely done very well in it, which I'm very happy about. Just such a massive plant, honestly, but I love that. I think they look so good. Up here, the really tall one, we've got more Rudbeckia Herbson, which is, yeah, looking good, although it does annoy me that even though I've staked this, it still refuses to sort of be upright. So I don't know what to do. Does anyone have any tips for staking these better? Because I've got a nice hoop support at the bottom. It doesn't seem to be working. I think this area here in front of me is completely different than the last time I did a tour. So before here, I had some of the Maystonian Scabias, and I decided to basically get rid of them. Most of the plants have died. They've got that powdery mildew, and they just weren't looking too good. They're also such high maintenance because you have to deadhead them constantly. So I decided, perfect opportunity to replace them with several new plants. So we've got this really nice grass. Can't quite remember the name of it, but it's a very, very pretty one. We've got some Gora mixed in there, so very airy, fluttery. And we've also got this verbena, which I think is called Lavender Haze or Lavender Spire. It's actually a new type of verbena. I got this from the Sandringham Flower Show, which is a new sort of flower show here in England. And yeah, they were selling it as a new variety. So Sandringham Flower Show, thank you for all these plants that I purchased. Yeah, I really, really love them. I really love the new verbena. I think it's really, really nice. At the back, we do have some Sanguis Sorba, but as you can see, it's kind of died off due to the hot weather, even though I kept watering it. However, the plants aren't completely dead. They look very dead, I know, but there's some green stems on them, which means they are alive. So I think what I'll do is in autumn, just cut them back. And I think next year, once they've sort of rooted themselves in the ground a bit more, they'll come back stronger than ever. So I'm really excited for the section next year when it grows a airy kind of planting that I've gone with, but still kind of cottagey in a way with its sort of colour schemes. So yeah, I've also got the Persicaria here, which is looking very good. Persicaria actually does prefer wetter soils, I believe, but it's kind of near my pond, so it's a slightly wetter corner of the garden, also near the tree, which produces some shade. So yeah, that's kind of why I've themed this that way. But Persicaria is pretty tough. You can see it has been attacked by the heat, yet it survives, and it keeps flowering. So I think it's a tough one, and it should be fine, as far as I can tell. So hopefully it'll keep on thriving, and next year it'll get even bigger, because I know they do get really big. What about over this side? Geranium brookside is flowering again, looking nice, so that's very exciting. We also have another Aster here, which is actually just one plant, but it works so well in combination with the Calamagrossis. I feel like that's such a good combination, the sort of asters weaving in and out of those grasses, and we've even got our little sort of spikes here. Wow. Yeah, this is an area I really like at the moment, and hopefully next year, you know, we'll get more out of the Geumtotli tangerines, which have basically completely stopped flowering now. So yeah, hopefully next year we get more out of them, because I think they really didn't like how hot it was, because having some orange here with all this blue would look wonderful. We also do have the More Agastache over here, a really nice trifecta of them, and then we have these massive Verbena Bamptons, which this year are huge. As you can see through the middle, they've really really suffered, which is such a shame, again just due to the heat we've been having, but overall I think they've done pretty well, and you know, I'm pleased with them. So yes, that is our August cottage garden tour. There's been some ups and downs this month, I think it has been a really tough one, but overall I'm so pleased how the garden looks. I mean, especially this back border, it's so colourful, all the colour schemes work really well, I feel. And also what I'm really proud of is the fact that the structure in here is so much better. Like, I look at this and I see a structure that is so much better than last year, which makes me really happy. I mean, if you watched some of my gardening tours from last year, you'll know I wasn't happy about, like, some grasses kind of standing on their own and looking pretty silly, and plants just feeling very random. So now I'm really happy with it, and I think there are changes to do still, which I'm going to do in autumn, but yeah, it's looking really good. So let me know what you're up to in the garden, I would definitely love to know. If you made it to the end of the video, then definitely consider subscribing, and I'll catch you soon for more gardening tours.