Happiness is a man on a tractor

Wild canna lilies, tangled brambles of moth plants, woolly nightshade and wandering jew are no match for my old man! Having begged, pleaded, grovelled and wheedled for a week, I finally convinced Dad to bring his tractor up for the weekend to help clear the huge mess of weeds on my side boundary. It took all day to drag, pull, hoist and shuffle nine cubic metres of green waste into a huge rubbish skip. It has left a gaping hole, but it had to be done. And it was fairly painless, apart from the Phoenix palm spike in my palm (ow!) and the Phoenix palm spike in my head (double ow!)... and the aching hamstrings from going up and down the ladder all day to stomp up and down on the prunings so we could cram more in.
I must admit, I'm quite excited by the possibilities presented by my new gap. I'm now negotiating with the neighbours to find the perfect boundary planting (anything but pittosporums!), then I'm intending to jam in lots of heritage fruit trees. I want a quince, a dwarf pear (the old one looks worringly unsteady now that I can actually see the base of its trunk), more grapes, almonds, nectarines, a late plum and more berries. And perhaps a picking border... I think I'll dig up all the dahlias and plant them along the back of the picket fence, so I can easily tie them up each summer for support.

Dazzling dahlias

Remember when dahlias were as naff as carnations? No more. If I could only have one flower in my garden, I think I'd opt for dahlias over everything, even hydrangeas and fragrant old-fashioned roses. (Mind you, ask me again in spring and I'd probably go for daphnes or miniature daffs.) My dahlias are spectacular this year. No, actually make that SPECTACULAR. Which makes me wonder how much better they'd be if I'd actually got around to staking or feeding them! I wish I could remember the name of this medium-sized dark red pom-pom type because it has been flowering for ages and it deserves to be recommended. My favourite is the dark blood-red giant decorative type 'Zorro'. It has absolutely huge flowers, wider than my handspan, but it really needs to be picked before I water the rose garden because the blooms are so heavy that even a few drops prove too much for the stems to handle. Luckily mine is held up by the low branches of a young Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' at one end of my rose garden.
Another favourite variety has white petals splashed with pink and an equally flashy name 'Cincinnati Dancer'. It didn't flower last year (the snails munched the shoots) but the first bloom is about to open. It's the first thing I go outside to look at in the morning, and in the evening when I get home from work. The petals are showing colour now... I can't wait for it to fling open completely. Funnily enough, I've always thought of dahlias as high-maintenance beauties but mine are proving me wrong this summer. No care, no fuss, just fantastic flowers, one after the other.