ALMOST JULY ALREADY!

 Where does the time go?

We have been to other gardens like Sizergh Castle and its lake - bit big for a pond - and the steps were covered in Erigeron (Mexican Fleabane).

We have all but lost our gardener which is a bit of nuisance but he has a young family and their needs come first.

So, to cheer me up here are some flowers -

Right, after a plethora of birthdays, the rain and wind has flattened one or two plants. A sudden turn for in the weather plus it is only 13C today means the peonies are done.

Without bright sunshine - well only intermittently - plants in darker areas can come to the fore - bronze fennel, rhubarb stems, hypericum and poppies hidden away under the magnolia.

On the windowsill in my room the potato on a bottle is doing okay but what happens if the roots inside the bottle start to grow tubers I hate to think. The small book of poems was a father's day present from my daughter. One of the poems is by Henry Constable and I have a book of his poetry by Joan Grundy who lived just across the field from us when she retired and was a patient of mine. (Ten Poems about Gardens introduced by Monty Don, Candlestick Press.)

More white, so important - the unpruned cut-leaved elder is enormous and the Philadephus loaded with flowers and scent. Up on the top banking the patch of white rosebay gets ever larger. As age creeps on if we can have much of the garden looking good with ground cover and minimum effort the good.

My son C bought me an insect nesting box but I do not think the many wasps scraping away at our green oak beams will be interested. I have not found the nest yet (nor the rabbit hole where the many bunnies come from to eat the garden.) But things change - the lack of swallows and house martins - and some things never change - weeds and growing grass, ungerminated seed in the veg beds, slugs, snails and blackbirds eating all the currants.

First buddleia out and here comes that brachyglottis (senecio).