Finlaystone House

July In The Garden

July In The Garden

July in the Garden 2019
At the time of writing this, mid June, summer has so far been a bit of a disappointment particularly compared to last summer which was one of the warmest and driest experienced in many years. That’s not to say that Finlaystone has been subjected to torrential rain. In fact the soil is surprisingly dry and could actually do with more rainfall.
Most of the spring flowering plants are now past their best and the baton is being passed to those plants that put on their flowering display during our all too brief summer. A walk round the walled garden reveals peony, philadelphus, oriental poppy and roses all beginning to put on a fantastic show of mid-summer colour. One of the most unusual flowering plants in the garden is Cytisus battandieri (pineapple broom). This small tree from Morocco was only introduced into this country in 1922. The scent from the yellow flowers smells strongly of pineapple and it is a wonderful plant to have in the garden and is surprisingly more hardy than one would expect of a plant from North Africa.
One of the highlights of the garden in July is watching all the fruit develop and swell on the numerous fruit trees and shrubs within the walled garden. Blackcurrant, raspberry, gooseberry, blueberry, apple and pear are all grown at Finlaystone.
The summer months are always exceptionally busy in a garden and the garden at Finlaystone is no exception. We currently have a couple of hard working volunteers that help the gardener maintain the garden, but as always more help is always welcome.I



BECOME A MEMBER AND JOIN US AT FINLAYSTONE