Glad to say the bulk of my ladderwork is finished. I love the structure of the pleached hornbeam and garden rooms but it is a huge job to do the main cut of the year. Last year with the hot weather I came in every day with dreadful headaches. This year although it has been another dry summer so far we have not had the extreme heat and there have been enough overcast days to be able to get the work done in reasonable comfort. And this year I have paced myself! Every year I bless Jake Hobson for setting up his company Niwaki. I now do all the work using his ladders. Being so lightweight makes the work much easier, and their manoeuvrability is wonderful. The pleached hornbeam backs onto flower beds and I can get the ladders in without too much damage to plants.

It is the point in the year when different plant groups come to the fore. I have a lot of sanguisorba now. They are looking lovely. It is proving a very good year for penstemon. Last year I took one from my Mother’s garden. Might be the one called ‘Margery Fish’ but I am not sure. It has picked up the colours of Clematis ‘Crystal Fountain’ very nicely and is now teaming itself with a deeper violet-purple penstemon. The astilbe I have been getting from Marwood Hill are also doing well. The lily experiment has proved a success – they have come back again and are looking beautiful. So all in all not a bad year for the garden. Yes, its dry but not so bad as last year. Thank goodness!

Much hard work is under way creating new beds for peonies. Two hundred foot of box hedging has been removed. Now the soil needs improving with manure, and the edges and a new path needs to be made. There is a lot of hard work that goes into creating a garden!