UNDER THE JET STREAM

That is what we are. It is driving low pressures in  from the Atlantic with rain and wind and mediocre temperatures. The lawn never gets dry so the sit-on mower clogs with wet grass - 😖 English weather.

Down in the veg beds I noticed that a rabbit had had a go at digging under the chicken wire fence.

 The asparagus is lush which bodes well for next spring, we have mizuno for salads and white chard. There are still some ripe black currants.

 The Hydrangea Annabelle is full of flower and getting big. When it gets wet the heads bend to the ground.

 The white rosebay is over and sending its feathery seeds drifting across the garden on the breeze. When it rains they become a soggy mass.

Big news - I have been to Mountain Warehouse and bought a snood to use in shops as a mask - but it is hot so comes off as soon as I leave.

Yellow flowers, a rose and evening primrose light up dark corners but the garden is in one of those gaps where we are waiting for a new flush of flowers. 




We do have lavender and the white phlox though.

 Say a prayer for the Victoria plum now supported by posts as the weight of its fruit threaten to break the branches. I have thinned them out but still . .  





One shrub that self sows all over the place is the hypericum, now with it red fruit after yellow flowers. It needs regular yanking out.

 Down across the pond is the red rose P gave us climbing up the holly in the hedge. By the pond the astilbe is the same colour - a plant R does not like. The national collection is at Holehird just outside Windermere, I think, so we will probably not be going there, at least for the astilbes.

Anyway the hedge will need laying this winter and I will have to remember to tell the men not to cut down the holly and rose, the wild plum and the big oak. The rest can be dealt with. It is a field boundary and we need to keep the sheep and cattle out.

Finally got out to a big garden at Holker Hall and tea and cake on the courtyard after - all socially distanced. The gardens were escaping along with four of the seven gardeners laid off. Grass unsown, spreading shrubs untrimmed, but it was good to sit in the Sunken garden and no one else around, except for  darting vole. They have planted a few more eucryphias since we were last there but the whole ambience was of reluctant letting parts go until this virus retreats. 

Back at The Nook the rose on the shed is glorious and the alchemilla that was flattened by the rain is like a yellow waterfall onto the tarmac.

On coming back R has decided the bed at the back of the house by the front door (which is at the back) needs totally revamping. Perhaps a job for S the gardener. Take most stuff out and put in a load of manure, then plants we have with nowhere to go? A job for the autumn.

Have mown the lawns and they are wetter than I can remember - wellies sinking in, mower wheels spinning and no way can I use the sit on mower. We are back to the usual good old English summer - cold and wet.