Phew, what a scorcher!

'Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.'
Russel Baker

During the record-breaking high temperatures in England at the beginning of July, most people's gardens were drinking copiously from the hose and deep-breathing to stop from wilting. We were in France, so our garden had to suffer in silence. On our return, we found that, all of a sudden, everything had come together – healthy neglect was obviously a timely recipe.

Rocket and cut-and-come-again lettuce were ready for eating, along with all the herbs that had been biding their time before we left them. The thymes, sisyrinchium and alchemilla mollis planted among the pavings were looking happy and the tiny plants poked into crannies in the walls had put on weight and were trailing or blooming. Self-seeded nasturtiums had started to flower, as had the cosmos and antirrhinums(given the Chelsea chop in May) that had been put into spaces to give us some colour in our first year.

Now the new plants are finding their feet, I can imagine which ones will need to be moved in the autumn, and where I need to bring in plants of a different height, habit or colour. I am hoping that at the end of the season I shall be able to split some plants that seem to like these conditions and have spread enough to be divided. So far I don't have the problem of plants becoming too big for their spaces; next year, perhaps, or the year after.

We have been enjoying meals in the garden, taking in the scent of dianthus and roses, looking forward to the scent of honeysuckle and night-scented stocks in the next few weeks. I must savour the moment, and not constantly cast my eye from one place to another, anticipating the little jobs (weeding, dead-heading, pruning) to be done tomorrow.