Midsummers Day in Your Garden

To spend Midsummers Day in your garden should be a delight for your senses. A garden filled with scented flowers; sun warmed strawberries to pick and eat and not too many gardening tasks to do.

I have some definitions of Midsummer to share with you later, but firstly, let’s consider 3 Flowers, 3 Fruits and 3 Tasks for you in your Midsummer Garden.

Midsummers Day in Your Garden – 3 Flowers

A selection of colour, form, habitat in these flowers, so there should be one to suit you and your garden. The one thing they have in common is that they are all flowering at this time of year.

St John’s Wort

There are nearly 500 different species of St John’s Wort, both shrubs and herbaceous perennials. The yellow flowers of all the St John’s Wort seem to me to reflect the sunny June days of this Midsummer period. Some species are more suitable for gardens than others with too lax a habit and coarser foliage. Hypericum forrestii is one of the smaller shrubs with flowers of a clear yellow. Semi-evergreen the leaves turn an orange-red in winter, giving you a change of interest in your garden.

Hypericum perforatum is the medicinal herb which is used to treat depression. Native to Europe it has been in use as a means of warding off evil spirits since Ancient Greece. Traditionally collected from the wild on St Johns Eve, it is not recommended for self-medication internally. But you could try making a lotion with it to treat sore muscles after too much gardening as it has anti-inflammatory properties.

Lysimachia atropurpurea ‘Beaujolais’

I cannot resist the colour of this Lysimachia! Along with members of the Lythrum genus, Lysimachia are sometimes referred to as loosestrife. There are nearly 200 species and the drooping flowers of some of them, including atropurpurea ‘Beaujolais’ give rise to the common name of ‘gooseneck loosestrife’.

Lysimachia atropurpurea is definitely a cut above the common green leaved and yellow flowered garden variety. Silvery foliage and burgundy flowers from May to September make this an attractive border plant for a moist soil. Very attractive to butterflies, the blooms also make good cut flowers.

Lilium regale

Also known as the regal lily or royal lily it is a Chinese species and easy to grow in British gardens. A tall stately white lily with one of the strongest perfumes, so it makes up for the lack of obvious scent from the other two flowers! Large, trumpet shaped flowers are flushed with pink in bud, which slowly fades as the open bloom ages.

They add height to a border, grow well in pots and if grown as a cut flower, fill your house with their heady aroma. As ever, do be aware of the potential issues. Red Lily Beetle can decimate the plant, so keep a beady eye open for these. And all parts of the plant are poisonous to cats, but the pollen is most likely to be a problem as it may fall on their coat and then they ingest it when they wash themselves.

Midsummers Day in Your Garden – 3 Fruits

A sun-lover, a shade-lover and a sun loving shade tolerant fruit. All are perennial fruits so easy to look after.

Strawberries

Strawberries, Fragaria, are for many the epitome of an English summer, eaten as part of a cream tea or with Pimm’s whilst watching Wimbledon. But let us not forget the Northern areas of the UK! Strawberry varieties that will be fruiting at Midsummer include Honeoye which grows well in the North.
Alice is a strawberry variety that produces a reliable crop whether you live in Sussex or Caithness and should be fruit June – July.

For a bit of extra colour in your kitchen garden and patio pots, you could grow Toscana, a deep pink flowered strawberry. A perfect plant for your edible ornamental garden, Toscana is an everbearing variety of strawberry so will produce flowers and fruit at the same time as the season progresses.

Raspberries

Without question, one of my favourite fruits. Happy in the sun, tolerant of shade, you can grow Raspberries to give you fruit from early June through to late September without too much problem. Red fruit are the norm, but yellow fruits in both summer and autumn varieties are now available, as is a white fruit.

Raspberry ‘Malling Jewel’ is a reliable early season variety, with good disease resistance. One of the most widely grown varieties as it crops over a long period is Raspberry ‘Glen Ample’. This one should provide a heavy crop of rich tasty fruit wherever in the UK you happen to be gardening.

There is also available a dwarf Raspberry, suitable for growing in pots. I haven’t tried this one but have heard that it can be slow to fruit. This is not in itself surprising as the dwarfing process has probably affected the maturing process. I’d be interested to hear how well any of you have found this dwarf Raspberry produces fruit if you have it in your own garden.

And did you know that the Raspberry, Rubus, is related to the rose? So, if you thought the flowers looked a bit like a wild Rose, you’re right!

Rhubarb

If we’re talking about family relations within your garden, did you know that your clump of Rhubarb is related to your Persicaria?

Our shade loving Rhubarb, Rheum rhabarbarum, is one of those Marmite plants – you either love eating it or hate it. For those of you who love it, the focus has probably been on forcing the rhubarb to produce an early crop. This is of course a method to be applauded. But, by growing a later fruiting variety as well, you can still be enjoying rhubarb at Midsummer. I’ve found the trick in Southern parts of the UK is to have a shady spot where growth is slower. This helps to keep the plant cool and if I’m really lucky, we can pick the last of Rhubarb ‘Victoria’ in July. It used to be one of the treats towards the end of the school term – rhubarb crumble after sports day.

Midsummers Day in Your Garden – 3 Tasks

Lawn Mowing – or Not?

The British and their lawns: a topic of interest whatever the time of year. If we’re having a heatwave Midsummer (which is how its feeling as I write), then mowing is probably not a good idea, as the grass may end up looking scorched.

To keep your lawn looking tidy, trim the edges. A strimmer to use on both the edges and any tall weeds that have shot up on the lawn may be a useful ploy. No strimmer? Then purchase one of those lawn edgers where you can change the angle of the blade and use that to take off the weeds. So much easier on your back than using garden shears (says the voice of experience!)

Checking for Garden Pests

Garden pests of all shapes and sizes love Midsummer – or so it feels! However, a heatwave will deter the damp loving slugs from chomping their way through your ripening strawberries.

The trick with all garden pests and diseases is to check regularly. And before you all moan loudly that you don’t have time, let me suggest this. On your morning wander through your garden, cup of coffee in hand, hoping to find a raspberry or five, you can just as easily be looking out for signs of pests as admiring the rose buds.

Think you might forget to do something about it? Take your phone with you and photograph the problem. That is quickly done and easy to check later.

Deadheading and Cutting Back Herbaceous Perennials

This is one of those garden tasks that many people seem to get worried about. It certainly crops up in gardening lessons, and not just on the gardening basics course. Deadheading and cutting back are sometimes used as synonymous terms, but they are not always the same.

To deadhead flowers may be literally taking off just the spent bloom. Done before the flower sets seed, this encourages the plant to produce more flowers. There are some exceptions, of course, but it is a good general rule for summer flowering herbaceous perennials and annual flowers. Depending on the way the flower grows on the plant, you may deadhead by removing the whole flower stalk.

Cutting back herbaceous perennials is a chore you probably carried out last month – the ‘Chelsea Chop’. However, for those plants you didn’t chop, now is also a good time to do it. I’m concentrating on the foliage rather than the flowering stems. Cut off older, fading leaves. On late spring flowering perennials, you can cut back most of the old leaves to encourage new fresh foliage to brighten your borders in July. This also gets rid of those leaves which may have a bit of powdery mildew. Put these in your council green waste rather than your own compost bin.

Did you know that Midsummers Day and the Summer Solstice rarely fall on the same date? Midsummers Day is often used as a synonym for the day of the Summer Solstice. And this is reasonable, given it is the longest day; or rather the day with the most daylight hours in the Northern hemisphere.

The Summer Solstice in the UK in 2018 was Thursday June 21st. But this pagan festival became mixed up with, or celebrated alongside, a Christian festival which occurs a few days later. The Nativity of St John the Baptist falls on June 24th, which is also known as Midsummers Day. Unlike the Summer Solstice, this date doesn’t change as it’s not synced with the earth’s rotation.

For more on Midsummer Gardens and gardening, check out the articles below and within the blog. Or get in contact for us to help you create your own paradise of a Midsummers day in your garden. Whether that’s edible or ornamental; or my favourite, a combination of the two, an edible ornamental garden.