Next year everything in the garden will be so much better!
Next year the Clerodendrum Bungei

will have spread more and more in the border with the Telekia speciosa :




and cut others to the ground in spring, so those flower at about three or four feet.
Sorry to go on about a plant I love but which is strangely expensive to buy and has a popping up everywhere habit once you’ve got it. So, to go on:
Next year I will find lots of good places to put good pots like this:

I have recently rediscovered terracotta pots. The weight stops things from falling over (quite so easily….) and they do look good. Though why ever anyone thought this was a good idea is totally beyond me and accounts for my years of doubt about terracotta pots.

And next year I will have more of these flowers in more pots. Somewhere..

Lush. Agapanthus Midnight Star
And
We will have subdued the ground elder further, and filled the gaps with more truely blue grey hostas in the Hosta Walk.. And maybe some alliums..? The hostas will disguise the grotty leaves and the flowers will be so much better than the hosta flowers. Which annoy me.

The Hosta Walk
This bed of Geum Totally Tangerine and Geranium PATRICIA ‘Brempat’ will fill out and flower together. Imagine!

Next year these Rodgersias

will not wilt in heat and drought but do their usual magnificent best.

Or better, because we removed the privet which you can see was competing with them. And it will, of course, rain gently every night.
Next year these hydrangeas will grow! Not just survive by the skin of their teeths.


and
I will grow these again – but plant the bulbs (corms?) in succession. Mind you, they have kept going and going so far this year. Weeks! And they are scented (slightly).. Acidanthera (Acidanthera murielae syn. Gladiolus murielae)

And I’ll do this again:

Shelves full of Calibrachoa. Needing watering every day, whether it rains or not, because the shelves keep them dry. Love them though.
And, of course, we’ll have some Nemesia Wisley Vanilla because they are essential and flower all summer:

I will get rid of every one (ish) of the pale, miserable, seeding like mad Eupatoriums

and replace them with the super dark purple ones which will somehow, miraculously, have got much much cheaper.

Super dark purple one
And, you know, it will be a blissful summer next year. The weather will be perfect with gentle warm sunshine shining on all our visitors. And we will be full of energy and bounce. There will be pollinators everywhere, though not so much the million wasp nests. We will all be so happy.
Oh, and I’ll have spent the whole winter tidying up stuff like this

We can dream. Sigh.
Yep!
Ah… yes… Next year!
It’ll come.
Ah, the siren song of next year. It will be lovely.
Yes!
I love your optimism, Anne! Delightful!
I’m full of it….
and the weather? perfect of course
Won’t it be great!?
I grew that gladiola for the first time this year, and am utterly enchanted (common name is orchid gladiola.) I will try to save the corms to grow next year. They are cheap, so I’ll buy more if that doesn’t work out. I MUST try Agapanthus! I say that every year.
Ah, I don’t think it has a common name in the UK. Good luck with the agapanthus – I loved mine this year.
I am now humming “Camelot”, never rains till half past sundown, etc. and I don’t care for Hosta flowers either. It’s all about the leaves.
Yes, I wish they didn’t bother.
When you wish upon a star…
O, yes….
It rained here this week after two months of dragging, kinked hoses around. Suddenly, it’s green again and cooler. I’m feeling full of myself. I ordered spring-flowering bulbs today. Oh, the garden’s going to look so good next year.
YEY!!!!
Dry for half of August and September. Then four inches over 48 hours. Thrilled. Five days later a repeat with four inches over 48 hours. Should be fine now for Fall. Just waiting for that nice refreshing cooler weather.
Got a fire in and it’s pouring down….
One of my all time favorite quotes.
Voltaire’s comment in Candide “A garden is never so good as it will be next year”.
Happy Gardening!
Candide is full of wisdom – thought strangely, I’m not so sure about Voltaire!
Have you dared break the news to your Eupatoriums yet that they are all now Eutrochiums? Try catching them at a good time.
This may be very bad, but I have decided that I will stick to the plant names which I am familiar with, through thick and err.. thin. (I should be so lucky)
I am confident that if I thereby misname a plant, a quick online search will reveal the new name in no time.
It’s got beyond a joke!
I have found a hosta with thin leaves: Silly Strings, that has the most beautiful tall lavender flowers. I seem to be the odd one out here, as I love hosta flowers. Many are fragrant and last well cut. I am in Corvallis, Oregon.
Of course. There must be good flowers – there are so many hostas. Not on mine though. I have heard of fragrant ones – must get one.