The Charming Nook

Hello and welcome back to my blog. I am changing the day that I will now be posting weekly updates on my blog to Sundays – either morning or the afternoon on Sundays, depending on my work and life commitments.

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Today I wanted to share a new area of the garden, which I have now named ‘The Suntrap’. This is an area that the Mr and I planted a western red cedar hedge earlier this year, which I wrote about here.

The hedge has been establishing really well since then.

Prior to that, when we moved into the property, the area had an old shed, which we removed:

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July 2024

Since July this month, I have been slowly working on the area.

One of the first things I did was to remove some of the paving slabs to increase the planting area available. I wanted to create a path to walk up to the raised patio, which will be a lounging and relaxation area.

As you can see from the photos above, the raised patio area is very old and damaged – we will be working on that at some point.

As a reminder, here is what the patio area looks on to. This photo is back from April 2024:

I removed a number of slabs, to create some planting pockets next to the staircase wall:

Here is another photo showing what the paving looked like before I removed some of it:

I also removed some paving on either side of the entrance to the greenhouse, which edges The Suntrap. The greenhouse was installed earlier this year, which I firstly posted about here: A new greenhouse.

Here is a photo showing how the entrance to the greenhouse looked before removing the paving:

It was straightforward to remove the slabs by using a garden fork:

Whilst it may seem pointless to have done the above, I wanted the greenhouse to look more ‘bedded into’ the garden and softened by planting. I had been inspired when I visited the Chelsea Flower Show this year and how they had used planting all around the greenhouses:

I don’t have quite as much space around my greenhouse as the above photos show, but they offer some good inspiration.

I planted some lavender ‘Hidcote’ dwarf hedging, to line both sides of the greenhouse and I also extended that on both sides of the pathway to The Suntrap. I chose lavender to provide some evergreen structure and for how long it flowers:

The lavender edging already does a great job of leading your eye directly along the path to the raised patio area.

I then decided an archway to define the entrance to The Suntrap would add some extra interest to the area and add some year-round vertical interest.

I built the archway and the Mr fixed this to the staircase wall. We used the same archway that was used in The Wild Borders, where we installed a walkway of arches. You can read about that here: (A walk amongst the roses).

I have plans for the staircase wall, which I will be sharing in due course. The old wooden hand rail up the staircase will need completely replacing. Here is a reminder of how that area currently looks:

I also have lots of plants in pots scattered around The Suntrap for now, which need planting around the garden, but I will be adding more planting bit by bit over the coming months.

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Potatoes

In other news, I had placed my potatoes in tubs and grow bags months ago, which I wrote about here: (Planting out potatoes and strawberries and experimenting with a globe artichoke).

I had placed these pots temporarily in The Suntrap area.

Unfortunately, with the cooler and wetter start to Spring we had in the UK this year, much of the foliage was munched away by slugs:

I therefore decided to dig up the potatoes and see how they had grown this year so that I could remove the pots from the area. I recycled the old soil and compost by digging it into the new beds on either side of the pathway.

As you can see from the photo below, I got at most a small harvest of new potatoes. I suppose it is better than nothing, but I may have to think about nematodes next year to try to reduce the slug population – though it will depend on whether we see a repeat of the weather next year.

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Peacock orchids

For those that are observant, you’ll have noticed I have some pots of bulbs on the patio.

These are ‘Peacock orchids’, which I planted up months ago. They recently started flowering and they’ve provided a really interesting display:

I have these layered with some verbena ‘Buenos Aires’ (that I have grown from cuttings). I haven’t yet planted the verbena, I’ve only placed the pots whilst I decide where I want to plant them:

I quite like the combination of these plants together.

The ‘Peacock Orchids’ are not actually orchids at all. They are in fact a type of Gladioli. I really like their nodding growth habit and their colouring:

They are not frost hardy, so they are often treated as annuals. I don’t particularly like the idea of having to replace them every year unless I have to, so I am going to experiment with digging them up once they have finished flowering and their foliage has died back, and then I will put them in storage. I will then pot them back up next year and see whether they give a good display.

The Suntrap patio area may offer a long term position for the peacock orchids to bloom in pots every year.

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Oriental lily ‘Stargazer’

I also placed a large pot of oriental lily bulbs I have had for a few years now, called ‘Stargazer’. Unfortunately, this year I did not replace the compost in the pot and just left it as is from last year. I suspect this may have stressed the lilies to a degree and they experienced an attack from lily beetle:

Despite the foliage looking a mess, they have still given a lovely display:

I don’t yet know where I will plant out the lilies, or whether I will keep them in a larger pot. I suspect that if I put them in the ground, they will give a better display and multiply over time.

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That’s all for today. I hope you enjoyed seeing another new area of the garden and how it has been developing over the last few months. I will be putting up more posts soon. Happy gardening 🙂