The unravelling of summer

The flower beds have burst their banks, and all the floral woven cloths are fraying at the edges, blooms and seed heads and grasses all spilling and tumbling and filling the garden with loveliness. This week there are soft sweet toadflax filtering the stronger flowers all over the garden, softening the spaces between roses and lilies and phlox, and positive fireworks going on in our 'hot borders', where we grow most of the richly coloured dahlias in the favoured suntrap conditions towards the top of the garden and by the south-facing wall. The dahlias are punctuated by spurts of double orange tiger lily and vivid red crocsmia, all wonderfully tall and strong this year. In the long beds, snapdragons, cosmos and late scabious gather themselves for filling buckets in September, and the last batch of this year's sweet peas has been planted today. Abundance and richness and scent and delight.