LOOKING GOOD

Saturday and we have had our first lunch out on the new whatever - hate the word patio but then what - terrace?

There garden is looking good - as long as you do not look too hard.

 

The grass is dry, the grass is wet, the mower's clogged, I need to scythe etc etc. But though it is June it is still cold. 
On Friday, the longest day, and it was 12C at 9 am but by the next day the temperatures were 18.5C.

The lawns are finally mown and things are looking a bit tidier. 

Some plants are thriving like the redcurrants - unfortunately this means the blackbirds are too. I have managed to salvage 2 pounds of fruit so far - need 4 for jelly.

5 goldfinches on the feeders, they have fledged as have the magpies next door - 7 of them - 'for a story that's never been told'.
And squirrels come and go, and rabbits come - have netted some of the veg beds to keep them, and the pigeons, off. 
The young rabbits are too tame for their own good. When confronted they just sit and look at you with a puzzled air - what is this creature?


The heads on the peonies are so big they need staking or they end up on the ground. Paeony Shirley Temple, amazing and faintly scented.

Last night as I sat at my window the Phebe rose (Rosa rubifolia from Wormleighton Manor where she lived) slowly fell over. It is now staked and manured. We hope it will survive.

 Elsewhere there is colour in the oriental poppies, the alstroemerias and the so useful geraniums - because the slugs and snails leave them alone. I have ordered 3 deep maroon geraniums for R - she saw them at Swarthmoor Hall when we visited the gardens.

And roses, ramblers and climbers - the Albertine has decided to go fifteen feet up an ash tree - and roses in the rose beds. 

The pots by the back door are settled in and the white rosebay is rampant on the upper banking - which is alright - I knew it would do that so had to put it somewhere safe. The Philadelphus Belle Etoile in is flower as is the white deutzia. I do not from where the red poppy  in the midst of the rosebay came from, perhaps self seeded but unlikely as I dead head assiduously.

Trees - the mighty ash above the house is full of bird (and squirrel) life, the eucalyptus continues to grow and grow and the lower hedge is clearly in need of being laid again. 

At one of the ways down from the middle garden the the lower lawns I planted two thornless crataegus, onion either side. That on the left is thriving and three times the size of that on the right. The soil is the same, they were the same size when bought - a mystery.

I have been weeding, trimming the willow around the compost heaps, R has cleared the old heads from the aquilegias, but the one thing that I think of when I look at the garden is - where has all this come from? In winter there is bare soil, now a jungle.

Still some of it is looking really good.

We sat down by the pond last night, in the evening sun, in our little paradise, and thought how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place.