BATS, BLOSSOMS AND A BIRTHDAY

Before we get under way first a happy birthday to my cousin Adrian in Nelson, NZ. It is good to have someone who is always a little older than oneself. (So R tells me.)(Actually she does not - I just made that up.) 
He wrote a fantastic book on the case for organic gardening - Organic Futures - ISBN 1 903998 69 7 - anyway Happy Birthday A. and stay off barn roofs dressed as a spaceman!

Now, this is Pip - a pipistrelle bat found outside the kitchen door in the afternoon confused and disorientated - (whoops - tautology?).

I picked him (or her) - well, it up carefully so as not to get bitten and placed it in a safe place. Next day it had gone and by evening several pipistrelles were flying around at dusk. I should have marked it with some white paint as identification.

Before I move on to mundane matters such as wielding shears around shrubs overgrown with grass and bindweed let me dispose of three images that have been sitting waiting to be used.

The first is of the highly successful planting of alliums under the big cherry tree. This is definitely something that could be done elsewhere, perhaps with other plants.

Then this mixture of catmint (nepeta) and Osteospermum, I think, ecklonis - the centres of the daisy like flowers harmonise so well with the purple catmint.

The bottom one is of the Rose Rambling Rector. This has been fantastic this year but presents me with a problem. It is so vigorous that it is swamping the flowering currant through which it is growing, and after flowering the brown dead flowers are a mess but virtually impossible to prune. (Need for light bulb above head in a balloon here I think.

Now it is Saturday and R found a bat on the kitchen floor this afternoon - another pipistrelle! I picked it up and put it somewhere safe and dark,  it was squeaking audibly - so I am not too high-tone deaf then.

A couple of flower photos - left cistus, right opium poppy stigma and stamens - the poppies are allowed to freely sow themselves around the garden.

The Philadelphus belle etoile shown here is now almost over so some of the oldest stems have been pruned. It is rather boring shrub most of the time until it blasts forth with white flowers and heady scent.

To BIG flowers - here a couple of stonkers - first Magnolia grandiflora now finally showing its true mettle and then Hydrangea Annabelle. Here the podgy wrist on the left belongs to moi but it does give you some idea of the size.

On to a tale of a climbing rose. 
This was given to us when we moved in by PJR and it lived in one or two places before I put it in the bottom hedge with the hope that it would spread itself there. In fact it has decided to climb the holly tree above it so we now have a holly that has red flowers in summer and berries in winter.

Our son C is here and it is so good to see him as he lives away in Oxford. He is working in R's writing shed. She posted her second novel off for assessment yesterday (her second bad novel she says but she is wrong - JK Rowling watch out!)(not that she writes about hairy potters and stuff)(Jane Austen beware!).

We have eaten our first leaves off the perpetual spinach - a treat - a real Popeye moment. (That's all I can stands, I can stands no more.) Mind you I said to R that I am more shaped like Bluto but she disagreed - Wimpy she said!

Lovely!

Oh! Yes, must mention compost.