BLISS IS A GARDEN LIKE THIS

It is the weekend and we are in the kitchen drinking coffee. Outside the air is full of liquid sound - an indefatigable blackbird sings.
Yesterday, mowing the lawns at the far end of the garden, a tawny owl glided out of the sallow tree in the hedge, this morning there were hungry rook fledglings being fed in the back field, two birds fluttering their wings, on the outside table the same but this time magpies.

 A buzzard circles over the trees. A pheasant croak cracks the bliss. A small bird, perhaps a young sparrow, flies in through the open garden doors and leaves a message on the coffee table.

I have been down the garden trimming back the osier around the compost heaps - not surprising that the grow so well, probably take all the goodness from the compost.
The white rosebay is in full flood as is the Rambling Rector rose. The peonies are finally out.

Sitting in our extension after having weeded the asparagus bed and saying goodbye to the** gardener who has found two more springs next to the one he has drained is bliss. The flowers are magical but the birds are singing less and getting on with raising their young.

At the point above - ** despite saving in large font the New Blogger is determined to have the type in normal size 😠. See later . . .

The white rosebay is now well out (have to watch it as it is as invasive as the wild pink form) - if it is good enough for Sissinghurst's white garden it will do for us -  and the peonies are just enormous (Sarah Bernhardt)

Colour is everywhere -

the yellow of the first senecio bush (except they call it Brachyglottis greyi now.) The geraniums growing semi wild on the banking are a sea of blue flowers and the red of the oriental poppies go so well with green, any green.

AND TO DRIVE ME MADDDDDD Blogger have changed the way I can write my blog and insert photos and it is taking ages and I want to wring the neck of the idiot who devised this way of doing things - AAAAAAGH!

To move on to some other white stuff -

Rose Rambling Rector to the left - one of two, the other goes 12 metres up the old ash - and the first Ammi major on the right.

Cut-leaved elder is heavy with flower heads which is surprising as it got flattened earlier in the year.

 Outside the kitchen the Philadelphus belle etoile is getting going and pushing out its scent. The Mock Orange I love the best.

One surprise is that the strange foxglove below the kitchen has turned out to be a mullein (verbascum). We did have such a plant there a year or two back but it has obviously self seeded.

The fruit trees and bushes are doing well, too well - the Victoria plum is going to break its branches with the weight of fruit - thinning and propping needed, the black and red currants are colouring up already! Far too early, Can I beat the blackbirds to the fruit?

We will have a good crop of pears and apples but are still a bit far north for the greengages.

Just found I can still use the old Blogger - hooray! And when I look at it the font is the same throughout! And if I then change to the new Blogger the font is the same size so all I have to do is continually switch between the two formats. 😬

Out to the veg beds - hoe and sow more broad beans and broccoli.

I keep waiting for the downpours but all we get are a few drops of rain. However, the other night we had a visitor - 

No wonder we have no hedgehogs, the badgers roll them over and uncurl them.

I am going to ramble on about the Rambling Rector roses again, they are fantastic, the small one to the left, the other up the ash tree right.

 And then there are the wild roses - the pink dog rose or this, the white field rose. They can be vigorous and need controlling yet their simplicity is beautiful.

 Last year I sowed a new bed with poppies and they did not do much. Now the opium poppies, left, and the Californian poppies, right, having survived a mild winter are flowering abundantly. Perhaps not quite on the scale of the Himalayan uplands nor the Californian desert but this is England so cannot complain. 



Finally, when we sit out, we can hear this faint scraping noise all the time. It is wasps gathering wood for their nest from the benches and table (and sheds) leaving behind horizontal marks where they have chewed off some of the surface.
In a few thousand years there will be no benches left.

The weather this year has been so good I do hope that we have not had our summer - it has happened before.

Spoke too soon, Walk around garden, got drink and crisps to enjoy sunshine and - we are awash with torrential downpour, gutters overflowing, plants beaten into submission, only good thing is I will not have to water the garden!