SUMMER ONLY SIMMERS

The new flower bed created because of the house extension is doing well and we are waiting for the agapanthus to come out.

The Rambling Rector roses are in full flood, one sixty feet up the old ash tree above the white willow herb, the other growing through the flowering currant at the site of an old well.

Then there are the other roses, some golden, lighting up a dark corner, others with patterned petals like one of R's favourites, Rosa mundi.

Other fantastic blooms include the peonies and poppies.

 

But not all are huge single flowers - the Royal Fern, Osmunda regalis,  by the stream is looking better than ever. 

Elsewhere we would be eating redcurrants if the blackbirds had not got there first despite netting the bushes and they are now having a go at the black currants. We are eating broad beans and broccoli though the chard had to go when it reached seven feet tall!

Another statuesque plant is the Phormium tenax variegata which is really too big and in the wrong place but would be a nightmare to move. It is also called New Zealand flax and it has rather strange flowers.

Our attempts to grow an aeonium after the assassination of our previous plants by a hard winter frost is ok but slow. I have put the pot outside beside the petunias.

On the way down to the pond, by the Wendy House, the rose Albertine and another climber whose name I have forgotten are climbing the young ash and sycamore growth. The scent of the Albertine is glorious. I have noticed that it is growing through the trees and is much better on the far side - for next door.

As is the heady perfume from the cut-leaved elder that has exploded in growth this year.

And thanks to P for this gunnera, a slow start but surviving by the stream.

We also decided to let the banking below the house go wild but it will only be for a while. I feel a gardener with a strimmer coming on.