TALKING BLUE

It is hot - well for here, 21C and my extra lard cover is causing overheating, (let alone overeating), problems.

Just noticed our variegated phormium has put up a flowering stem - this is going to be dramatic but we must be aware of its self seeding potential.

The garden is bursting with stuff and my willow avenue (that was meant to be a tunnel) is looking fantastic. So, will I be resistant to it being cut down and taken away under the new plans?

The removed clematis and honeysuckle are doing well in their pots - will I want to put them back?
Will R let me?
Will Gary Primrose put his foot down?
Who cares if it does not lead anywhere?

Have put in a big leaved rhododendron from Stonefield Castle at the foot of the path up to the wood - it can grow away there without care.

I have trimmed back the grass, put down a black permeable membrane and covered with old manure as a much on the small shrubs below the path. The strawberries are strawed as they are in flower. I have been told I should nip out all flowers this year but Hey!

So now I am going to talk blue for a moment, no not that sort of blue - I mean, would I talk like that? Well, perhaps after nettling myself or grasping a bramble in error. I mean as in bluebells in the wood or forgetmenots in then rose bed as shown here. Blue is such an interesting colour in the garden - good blues are hard to find as so many are violaceous (big word) or purply. Actually bluebells are a bit like that. 

And now for Sweet Cicely, a wild umbellifer with an aniseed flavour in the leaves. It seeds itself about so one has to be wary but it thrives in the garden. Here it is already becoming dwarfed by the lovage (lemony flavoured leaves) at the back. Umbellifers are welcome - most of them - in the garden. The wood is a sea of beautiful pignut, small and delicate. Queen Anne's Lace (hedge parsley) had responded to being sown on the banking by R and flourishes, the garden is host to wild angelica - ok - and hogweed - dramatic but a nasty piece of work.

And here is the inside of the rhubarb forcing pot - a thrushateria with ready to go snails.

I read today that if you throw them more than 65 feet away from the garden they do not come back so i must go out and get a catapult. Actually I could make a catty with some knicker elastic and a forked twig.

On the left are flowers on the crab apple, on the right red currants behind netting. I have hopes that we might get some before the blackbirds but they are cunning and persistent b****rs. No, not that but beggars - you thought different? We are back to blue?

Well, I am exhausted, my thought processes and inspiration is/are exhausted and I fancy a beer - yes not a cuppa tea!

More soon.