IT AIN"T HALF HOT

 - 31C and we are back after our holiday in Wales and I am surrounded this morning by a whirl of house martins. Everything has grown, has come out, is over, cannot keep up. The stag has been scraping velvet from its antlers in the wood, on the ground in the bushes.

One intrepid spider has made a nest and now the web tangle is full of tiny arthropods. You can see the tiny creatures in the left hand image.

So R has been deadheading and cutting back, I was hedge cutting, took down the dying white lilac 😒 and have mown the lawn.

R has bought six white petunias for a pittance at the supermarket so they have been put with the euphorbias by the back door.

Hot and getting hotter. Watering the garden - no ban up here and anyway we have the borehole. R cutting back when not eating the greengages off the tree. These are Victoria Plums though.

We are all threatened with drought, hosepipe bans and so on. The grass may go brown but it will recover.

The Lucifer is all but done but there are other crocosmias doing Okay. R likes this orange one very much and uses it in vases in the house.

The day lilies - the orange one does not cut well as the flowers only last a day.

We have sweet peas!! A change from previous years, but not the ones I tended through the winter which did not survive but the ones from the greengrocer.

Here are some other flowers - 

pinks and pots, agapanthus and roses.

Some wild flowers seed themselves and my gardener's mind says, "Dig 'em up!" But I don't.

Hogweed in the shrubbery - looks quite good - must not let it seed though.

We have an explosion of hydrangeas - Annabelle the most spectacular.

Finally the white rosebay is done and seeding with amazing abundance as the feathery seeds drift in the breeze across the garden.

Time for a very cold drink - or perhaps a cuppa tea?