Phase two

This is the last of the oriental poppies, it got to come inside and sit on display for half a day before the petals fell off in dramatic fashion. The garden has just had a serious haircut. Some plants have done their thing and needed to be be chopped down to allow others to take over. I always feel bad doing it, and it is horrible afterwards when instead of lush, gorgeous growth all over the place you have bare patches of soil. But it is necessary to do this sometime after midsummer. Now there will be a funny couple of weeks before the next lot of plants - marigolds mainly - start to fill out and claim their space. Moving on to phase two of the season.