This week, quite a few of my garden visitors have asked about a gorgeous fluffy pink flower around my pond area. I’ve got two large clumps growing in the ground.

It is called trifolium rubens, with a common name of red clover. It is a perennial that dies back to below ground level each year in autumn, then fresh new growth appears again in the spring. It has trifoliate blue-green leaves covered in soft hairs, which offer a beautiful contrast for the conical clusters of magenta-red flowers, which open from silvery buds in summer. It is also very attractive to beneficial insects including butterflies and bees and looks amazing in naturalised planting styles. It will tolerate full sun or partial shade, is fast growing and fully hardy. More importantly it is generally found to be disease free.

Tuesday sees my second opening for the National Garden Scheme, with all visitors having to pre-book timed entry tickets. Check online at www.ngs.org.uk, as there may still be a few tickets. The annual Macmillan Coastal Garden Trail is back again for 2021, taking place over the weekend of July 24 and 25. This year there are 15 gardens, with nine in Brighton and six in the Seaford area. There are three new gardens joining some regulars and a couple of returning plots too.

Take a look at the full details on the web site, www.macmillangardentrail.co.uk where you can also purchase tickets, alternatively you can purchase in the first garden visited too.

This week has been another week of intense dead-heading. The recent weather has been very wet, meaning so many delicate flowers on the hundreds of annuals in my garden were smashed to pulp in the rain and had to be carefully removed to prevent the whole plant turning to mush. The net result, it is currently missing lots of colour but has plenty of lush looking greenery. We desperately need a prolonged period of sunny days to bring everything back to life again.

One task that has kept me busy this week is feeding my containers throughout the garden. Visitors all assume if it rains you don’t need to water. I regret that is not the case in my garden. I have over 300 pots this year and they are close together and tightly packed with plants so the rain that falls on the canopy of blooms just rolls off to the hard surfaces, missing the compost completely. One way of helping the plants revitalise after being beaten down is to feed them and encourage new growth, so blooms quickly reappear.

Read more of Geoff’s garden at www.driftwoodbysea.co.uk