Hi everyone,
Welcome to week six of In My Garden.
Summer seems to have disappeared and we've had a significant amount of rain here in Devon—42mm in my rain gauge over just two days! My pond has been overflowing, and all the outdoor tasks I had planned have been put on hold for now.
The garden has noticeably changed in colour and vibrancy with the recent weather. There's a chill in the air (light frost on Friday morning), and the rain has left many plants drooping, looking a bit worse for wear. I'm really not ready for the seasonal change, and as I sit here writing, I can feel the chill in the house, leaving me a bit cold and down.
It’s definitely going to be a challenge to find inspiration in the garden soon, but there are always small things to notice, and I still have bursts of colour scattered around.
Nepeta × faassenii
One of my most prolific and loved plants in the garden is Nepeta (Catmint), a lovely compact perennial with upright stems, grey-green leaves, and clusters of light violet-blue flowers about 12mm long. It starts to flower as early as Spring and continues happily all Summer, right through to Autumn. It is fantastic and a great alternative to lavender, especially since it’s happy in heavy, wet clay soil, and high winds.
When we were planning/doing our garden make over three years ago, I purchased a pack of 18 super cheap Nepeta plug plants, and I’ve been thrilled with their growth. They tick lots of boxes for me -
Hardy
Slug-resistant (I don’t use pellets and honestly don’t have the time to constantly manage them, so finding plants that naturally fend off slugs is a big win for me)
Exceptionally long flowering period
Bee and Butterfly friendly
Make good cut flowers
I bought them to underplant my olive trees and to line my paths. They do grow quite vigorously (despite being the ‘compact’ variety’), so I occasionally need to trim them back to keep the pathways clear, but this pruning actually encourages even more blooming, so it’s a win-win!
All pruning of them has to be done in the evening because the plants are so popular with the bees that it’s nearly impossible to get close to them during the day with them all swarming around collecting nectar!
Nepeta are great for supporting pollinator populations and creating a more biodiverse garden and honestly, they are so easy, that everyone should have them in their garden.
Now that we're in September, the Nepeta has definitely faded, and the flowers are slowly dying off, but the bees are still visiting and it’s hanging in there….
Here is my week 6 sketch for the Revolve exhibition happening next year -
The rain, along with a mountain of paperwork, has made this week rather unproductive in the garden. However, as I sipped my coffee from the comfort of the kitchen and gazed out, I watched the birds visit. We have an abundance of blue tits feeding from our bird table every day; they're so vibrant and joyful. I ended up sketching a few of them. Emma and I call these "speed sketches"—keeping our lines loose and free. We don’t worry about how they turn out, focusing less on the result and more about the enjoyment—quick and spontaneous! There’s something incredibly liberating about lowering expectations and concentrating on capturing the moment instead of perfection.
Between the rain showers, I did manage to pull out a few self-seeded grasses and pot them up in the shelter of my potting shed. Since I don’t have space for more grasses, I’ll be giving them to my other sister Becky, who’s looking to add more plants to her garden.
Thank you as always for reading 🌱
See you next week x