Chronicle April 2014 | Chronicles

PICTURES

August 2014

Greetings to all my beloved gardening friends. The date is 23 August. The rain has returned to Sweden’s fair land following an incredible hot, dry summer. Now, though, slowly but surely we’re entering into the harvest season. Whatever the season and month, a garden never stands still and everything has its charm.

It's now the afternoon and the entire garden is filled with the heady scent of phlox, the wonderful white phlox fujiyama which I so love. It won't come as a surprise that our monster clematis Paul Farges (Summer Snow) is still blooming. It makes no difference how much one cuts it back – it just keeps coming back and growing. Black Beauty lilies (which, despite their name, are actually far from black) are also spreading a very pleasing scent, and all around everything is so verdant. Wonderful.

Although there's a lot that still blooming, it's clear that the flowering season is beginning to taper off; nevertheless, the scents in the garden this time of year are amazing. Hortensias, on the other hand, have  no scent but they do make a wonderful contribution by helping to light up the evening darkness.

For my part, the end of August is also a harvest time. I’m regularly running to the forest to pick mushrooms (but only the safe ones that I know well, such as ceps and chanterelle mushrooms). And it’s also the season for making jams and cordials. In our garden we have apples, pears, plums, Bloomsbury's blueberries blackberries cherries and grapes. And, of course, small wild strawberries, which are almost a weed. We also have a wonderful mulberry bush that in previous years has given an enormous quantity of delicious sweet berries, but this year there won't be so many.

As I’ve said, this is a wonderful time of year, but everything goes so quickly. When I look back I reflect and think “my goodness, how quickly the seasons change.” Soon we’ll be receiving our large delivery of bulbs from Holland through our bulb club (A Gentlemans Bulb Club), which means of course that it will be time once again for planting. In fact, already this afternoon I'm planning to plant my first bulbs of the season (which we received in a smaller, early delivery). I always have an almost spiritual feeling with the first bulbs of the season – finally, it's time! After that, it's just a question of a few thousand more ...  

My sincere thanks to all of you who have visited us during the season and thereby supported the Red Cross. It's been a pleasure to meet so many wonderful people. The garden is now closed for this year, but we intend to continue our collaboration with the Red Cross next year, and I hope that you'll have the possibility to come back and visit us in the springtime. There'll be an extraordinary explosion of colour. That's a promise...    

Warmest greetings from

A Gentlemans Garden, Tumba