The show tune sums it up – June Is Bustin’ Out All Over – and this includes gardens all over the country. As green spaces burst into bloom and warm June days abound, you can almost hear gardeners across the UK erupting into cheers – these weeks of colourful borders, tangles of sweet peas, clambering roses and swaying delphiniums – not to mention the busy, buzzing bees – make the hard toil worth it. It’s time to sit back and enjoy... perhaps the deadheading can wait.
One such proud gardener is Jo Whiley, 60, who recently shared a look at her modern country garden on Instagram – including a rundown of her favourite plants. The whistlestop tour ended with a smoke bush – a large shrub, named after the hazy, feathery plumes of tiny pink or purplish flowers that bloom in summer and look like puffs of smoke.
‘I thought I’d show you what the borders are looking like,’ says Jo. ‘It’s all a little bit wild at the moment and the roses are going over a tiny bit because they need deadheading.’ The broadcaster goes on to introduce her favourite flowers: ‘beautiful, beautiful’ sweetpeas, peonies, verbena, ‘lovely’ poppies, roses and foxgloves. ‘Everything is looking really nice this year,’ she says.
Sweetpeas are a flower particularly close to her heart: ‘They’re one of my all-time favourites, particularly the brightest ones… those iridescent blues, dazzling pinks, mad oranges. I love that clash of colours,’ she told the Telegraph. ‘But more than that, it’s a flower I’m very nostalgic about, because my grandad used to grow them. Whenever I see them, it brings back all these wonderful memories of being in the garden with him.’
Jo's passion for gardening is well-known - not only did she cover The Chelsea Flower Show for the BBC this year, but hosts the RHS podcast RHS Roots twice a month, and co-hosts the Dig It podcast with Zoe Ball. She also strongly advocates for the power of gardening for mental health, even for those with small spaces.
'I guess we’re all starting to realise that being outside, putting our hands in soil, touching plants, watching things grow… even walking barefoot across the grass, is good for us,' she said. 'Life can be hectic at times, which is why the garden is somewhere I go to forget about it for a while.'
