You may be new to The Gardening Mind, in which case, thank you ever so much for joining this lovely community, now entering its fifth year here on Substack. It exists purely due to the support of its readers - thank you.
There’s a lot here - have a scroll, check out the home page, join in the Chat…… I hope you enjoy! You will find THE FRIENDLIEST gardening community here, I promise.
I do spend an awful lot of time rabbit-holing, messing about with plants, doodling and reading about things I don’t have time to be reading about, and I gather these things together under one roof and share them with you every month. So here’s July’s Cultivated, the collection of gathered-together bits and bobs which have caught my eye and lured away my brain this month.
It’s free to read and I hope that, if you’re new here, you enjoy dipping in and out of it.
I thought it might be helpful to gather in one place a list of what’s been happening here in The Gardening Mind over the last few weeks:
Most importantly, I launched The Index - where you can find EVERYTHING
Plants that I’ve lost my patience with, and plants that have never let me down - the original…
A tough, drought-loving perennial that pollinators can’t resist
We’ve just finished this course, and I am going to be launching a Planting Design Studio in January, with details announced in September. If anyone would like to join another Garden Design Studio, please do email me, with the subject STUDIO - if there’s enough interest, I’ll run this course in October-November.
It’s dry out there, and it’s HOT. I’ve been noticing how ALL of my plants have been coping well with the conditions without being watered - only a few of the pots get watered every morning; the more drought-tolerant containers get watered once a week.
Look at Rosa ‘Emma Bridgewater’ above. She’s absolutely as happy as anything in the heat, standing proudly with nary a wilt in sight. (I don’t think I’ve ever written or even said ‘nary’ before - I think I like it). Looking gorgeous with the self-seeded cornflowers and Sanguisorba ‘Lilac Squirrel’, she’s the best-performing rose in my garden at the moment.
I combined her here below with summer berry pudding colours:
You can find the plants listed here.
If you’re looking for other roses to work with her, try shades of these:
Remember Jessie Buckley’s Oscars dress which I wrote about back in March? Well, the sumptuousness of the colours reminded me of these roses:
This week, Rukmini Iyer put together this lovely combination - I love to see pinks and reds - all the forest fruit shades bring total joy. As I’m thinking about my own new garden (there’ll be more coming on this subject, if and when we exchange contracts - in the meantime I keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking what on earth am I doing moving from my perfect house and lovely garden, to a wreck of both a house and garden).
R. ‘Emma Bridgewater’ will be appearing in The Rose Diaries this weekend, along with some other heat-lovers, including this gem:
I have actually mentioned this rose in passing before; I’m wondering if any eagle-eyed Gardening Minds might just remember her….?
I first used R. ‘Emma Bridgewater’ in The Glasshouse Garden at Chelsea (Horticulturalish wrote an extraordinary piece about it here). In May this year I went visit it in its forever home at HMP Downview: you can see more images here:
I cannot tell you how moving it was to see this garden under new ‘ownership’. Women who have never had a chance to garden in their lives, let alone any access to green space in custody, are now tending and nurturing this space, keeping a stern eye out for litter and weeds. One woman has drawn illustrations of garden birds and pinned them up inside the pavilion, so that her peers might learn to recognise them. Another, a Reiki practitioner, was giving a boost to the garden, her hands just above the soil.
I’ve brought together my gardening articles that might be useful over this long, dry summer:
And of course, no Heatwave Special is complete without this by Julia Reis’s son all those years ago. THE BEST:
At RHS Badminton Flower Show last week, I came across this company with the very best dresses for heatwaves, in the thinnest of cotton and in the prettiest range of floral prints - and gorgeous pyjamas too. Look at these:
There’s also a long and short nightie in the same print
I can’t stop looking: how about these:
This shade is beautiful - you could camouflage yourself in amongst the wisteria:
I saw lots of people using umbrellas as parasols. I do think we should bring back the parasol, but a boring black foldy-up umbrella just doesn’t cut it, somehow. However, Rosehip do umbrellas too - this would make an excellent parasol:
And they do shower caps - this would jolly up morning ablutions no end:
My own dress was from Penelope Chilvers - I’m a big fan of this style.
I loathe a waistband and so when I spotted this linen dress on their stand at Chelsea, I pounced on it. The linen is incredibly cool in hot weather, but works with a cardigan and boots too. It’s been worn in the garden, to a wedding and to the pub. Versatile.
I’m still on that mission to bring back hanging baskets - along with parasols. Look at this excellent front doorway, sent in by one of our very own Gardening Minds. This belongs to her and I think it is brilliant. Let’s do it:
I know they need watering, but think of the bathwater video above and do that. If you spot a hanging basket, please do take a snap and add it to the Chat!
The dahlias are FINALLY coming:
The palette I went for this year is much softer - I love the bold tutti-fruitiness of dahlia display, but I wanted a bit of a change, and these colours seem to be working well in the general straw-like appearance of the garden. There’s something almost dried-out about the shades, I think.
I was surprised to see that there’s a new Little House on the Prairie coming out - but the original was so perfect!! Rosie Millard is excellent on the subject here.
Pandora Sykes and Natasha Poliszczuk are totally responsible for this summer holiday pile by my bed.
Having ordered them I then remembered that I’m not actually going on a summer holiday, so it made me need to book a January one instead. I cannot wait to enter into that One Book A Day heaven.
Great ideas in both these:
Also, Naomi Alderman is running a Couch to 5k of reading. How fab is that? That’s my kind of exercise.
I loved this from Olly Rowe - how to make guests feel comfortable.
It reminded me of when I was lucky enough to stay at the most amazing house years ago, when the bed was so high I needed a mounting block to get into it:
Anyway, the VERY best thing was that there was a tin of biscuits on the bedside table:
Rich Tea, no less! If you’ve listened to my Rich Pickings podcast, you’ll know they are my absolute favourite. The very Best of British Biscuits.
Rebecca McMillan’s illustrations really do brighten up the day:
And I’m intrigued by this constantly-growing tiny world created by Samgar Renkema:
I loved Lucy Deedes on Arthur Fery. What a lovely boy indeed.
I also am OBSESSED with this. I need to see it IRL:
Did I get to this next link via AlexTSmith ? I think so - but thank you anyway, Alex, as your Pigeon Post Joy Parade is a thing of joy every week. I save it till last on a Saturday, a real pudding of cheer to finish off the Substacks:
Thinking about holidays, I really want one of these:
And this made me cry: a group of Italian ‘youth’ serenading a lady in her flat , with an Italian classic:
On Italy, I am allowed to say, being half-Italian and with a lot of hair-raising experiences whilst in cars/taxis/buses there, that many Italian drivers do actually drive like this:
Alice Vincent asked me to cheer for the Maximalist side of gardening in Elle Decor this month. I can’t think why
Look out for this rose, coming in this weekend’s article. If you’re in Italy/France, or you’ve got a warm wall, this one is for you.
If you’re landing here at The Gardening Mind for the first time, welcome - I’m delighted you’ve found us. There’s lots going on here - garden design ideas, easy gardening how-tos, plant recommendations, general garden chat, border planting design tips and tricks, zoom get-togethers and lots more. If you’d like to join in, I’d absolutely love it.
If you’re wondering what we’re all about here, have a look at this. Also, please do head to the Home Page on your browser. There you’ll find over four years’ worth of design articles, plant profiles, garden challenges, short courses, tutorials, and lots and lots more.
If you haven’t quite decided what style of garden you like, or want, but you want to do something to your garden, there are lots of previous posts to read through which I think you’ll find helpful. There’s the Small Garden Design course to follow, Garden Design Case Studies and Garden Dilemmas. There are sections on City Gardens, Planting Design, Country Gardens, and Wildlife Gardening. You’ll find lots of ‘before and after’ examples, too, which I’m hoping will help show you what’s possible.
And here’s what I’d love to know: are you someone who has never gardened before but who is tempted? I would be just so happy if you decided to join us: we’ve had so many complete beginners join us over the last few years, and those beginners have over time sown their first seed, harvested their first salad leaves, and are here now forming this community of garden lovers. I want you to feel confident enough to have a go, maybe even to ask questions, and to feel that amazing feeling you get when you go outside and see your very first seedling poking its way curiously out of the soil. There isn’t anything quite like it.
Off to walk the dog now before it starts getting steamy again. Keep cool, friends.
This has been a free-to-read post: I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Thank you for all those heart-shaped likes that you’ve been leaving, and I’ll be back, properly, at the weekend.
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