Keeping the garden on track

Hygiene is about more than a neat garden, says Ruth

- Ruth Hayes

REGULAR readers will know that I am not a massive fan of pin-neat gardens, preferring instead the colourful craziness that can develop when plants are left to do their own thing.

However, I do draw a line somewhere and when one of our main beds turned a little feral I had to step in and restore some order.

It came at a time when the early summer alliums had faded and their leaves and stems died back and a selection of self-seeded opium poppies and nigella had popped up and started to flop over.

In among all this were a young salvia and geum trying to gain a foothold, along with several annual heliotropes, snapdragons and rudbeckias that should be at their best later in summer.