The morning glories are finally putting on a bit of a show. They’ve done very little to cover my fences (most didn’t show up) so that plan didn’t work. I’ve concluded that they need to wrap around things, which they can’t really do on the fence. But a range of canes might be a good way to make a screen.

Bed 3 has been looking a mess since the yarrow fell over weeks ago. Today was finally the day to tackle it, as I had noticed that there was a pad of new growth at the bottom of the plants. I sat between them and the mint, cutting the stalks for the compost and was accompanied by lots of bees and a butterfly on the mint flowers.

With the bulk of the tidying done, this already looks so much better. But there’s a bunch more to do yet. I haven’t seen most of my boundaries in so long. I really want to cut those back as part of tidying this up.

In the afternoon I moved on to making a start on doing other tidying to try and keep tackling what’s annoying me around the place. I’ve done the deadheading and made the lupin in the front bed look much better. The big old stalks have gone and an amount of the outside grass has been pulled up.

Over on the ledge, I did lots of everlasting pea tidying, cut down sweet williams to the new growth and general fought the weeds that have made their home there. Lots more to do, but a small patch was won.

I also went round all plants, including the veg such as courgettes and pumpkins, looking for any dead leaves to cut off, to make the general colour more green than yellow/brown. I’ve also taken all the spent tops off the borage. Some of them look like they have new buds lower down.

It’s been an odd summer of growth, but I am noticing that some of my flower beds are overcrowded, or have too many tall things in my effort to hide my neighbours. As such, they have a bit of tendency to flop all over themselves, especially if weeds from next door give them a push.

There are gladioli all over the place – it would be nice if they multiply, as they’re good late summer colour. This is my favourite, over by Mr B’s gate.