What’s growing in my garden {June 2026}….

Has summer been and gone already? 😁

We’ve had some gorgeous weather over the last few weeks and it’s inspired us to spend much more time out in the garden. We’ve been trying our best to make it look as lovely as possible, despite both of us being complete novice gardeners, but we’ve also spent plenty of time simply sitting out there and enjoying it.

One thing we’ve discovered this month is that we genuinely enjoy being outside together. Whether we’re fixing a broken water feature, pulling up weeds, moving plants around or just sitting out with a cold drink, I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent out there.

This is probably going to make you roll your eyes, but I feel genuinely content when we’re pottering around in the garden. Life has felt quite busy for a long time and there’s something really lovely about slowing down for an hour or two, listening to the birds and getting more excited than we should about things like new flowers appearing or a plant surviving longer than expected. 😀

Last month, I shared a little bit about our rather unusual garden layout. Most of the garden is at the front and side of the house, with a courtyard area at the back that has been covered over and incorporated into the garage. We still haven’t decided whether we’ll restore the courtyard one day, so for now we’re concentrating our efforts on the front and side garden.

I also shared a small corner of the garden that we’ve nicknamed the Bird Café, and it’s still my favourite spot. We have a couple of little robins who visit every day and have become quite regular customers. They’re joined by a handful of particularly chubby pigeons who are far less graceful and provide plenty of entertainment. While the robins carefully perch on the feeders, the pigeons seem to prefer barging into them and headbutting them until the food falls onto the grass below. 😂

This month, the shrub growing between our two acers has started to burst into flower and it’s covered in the most beautiful yellow

And remember my little fern from last month that was growing up around the bluebells…

I said that it was unfurling more every day and it’s now my favourite plant in the whole garden! The bluebells are long gone and the fern has really hit it’s stride looking all lush and green. Just look at it…

Another thing we did this month was rescue the old water feature.

It wasn’t anywhere near the top of our list of jobs when we moved in, but one afternoon we were sitting out in the garden when we heard a very faint buzzing noise. After a bit of investigating, we discovered that the sound was coming from the old water feature, which was hidden beneath years of sludge and garden debris.

When we lifted the cover off, we found the original water pump still connected and gamely trying to do its job despite being buried under what felt like half a garden’s worth of muck. Even better, the original instructions were tucked away in a waterproof bag, which let us work out that the feature dated back to the early 2000s.

After a very thorough clean, a lot of scrubbing and a couple of bargain bags of slate chippings from B&Q, we managed to transform our rather uninspiring hole in the garden from this…

To this cute little water feature…

Now I know it’s not the most impressive water feature you’ve ever seen but we rescued the water pump from under about ten years worth of sludge and the fact we managed to get it working again so even though it’s not as impressive as a fancy new one we could buy, it suits the house and we love it. 

We used the same slate that we used around the water feature to fill the gravel beds as they had a thin layer of old grey and red gravel in them that we didn’t love. It looks great now though although it did take more than we thought it would so it was three trips to B&Q to get what we needed. 

To finish the area off, I gave the front door step a coat of black paint and I honestly can’t believe the difference it’s made. It’s one of those jobs that took very little time or money but has completely changed how the entrance looks. The fresh black paint works so much better with the slate and helps tie everything together.

If you compare it to the photos from last month’s post, you’ll see exactly what I mean. It’s still the same space, but it looks so much smarter, tidier and more cared for than it did before.

We also fixed the garden gate, which turned out to be much more of a job than we expected and took far longer than planned. It was definitely worth the effort though, although it’s very easy for me to say that when I admit that by “we fixed the gate”, I mostly mean that I sat on the step with a can of Pepsi Max and offered moral support from a safe distance. 😁

We found the most beautiful garden centre last weekend in a little village near Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors and I genuinely could have spent all day wandering around. It looked as though it was run by an older couple and felt much more like visiting someone’s garden than a traditional garden centre. In fact, I’m fairly sure it was basically their back garden, albeit a very large and very impressive one.

I came home with a eucalyptus plant which looked absolutely huge when it was sitting amongst all the other plants there. Once we got it home and found a spot for it in our garden though, it suddenly seemed tiny. It’s completely dwarfed by some of the more established shrubs and plants that have probably been growing there for years, but I’m looking forward to watching it settle in and, hopefully, grow into its space over the next few years.

This is just a small area of the garden but I’ll share more next month. 😁

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