IT RAINED

 For a few minutes and then the sun came out. No measurable rain for a month and plants are dying, leaves are shrivelled and falling off some shrubs. At last it is a bit cooler. 

I have not lit the bonfire for fear of setting the whole place alight. The pond is low but we do have our borehole for watering. 

The mower will come back on Monday I hope. Seeds are not germinating and one of the cock pheasants has a bad limp.

Yet the Rambling Rector roses and the peonies are magnificent.

The fox has been through the lower garden but the rabbits from the field next door are thriving.

I think the Guelder rose tree will have to be severely pruned as it is growing so fast it is suffocating nearby shrubs like the Ginko. One for the gardener?

Thunder forecast for tonight - so will probably flatten everything. The goosegrass is so rampant I have just pulled it from the lower branches of the big damson tree.

The wild meadow, Mmm, is moving on with the ragged robin going

Mainly buttercups, yellow rattle and sorrel as well a the odd ox-eye daisy and limulus up from the pond area. There are a lot of yellow flag iris in the lower garden too.

The sycamore is covered in green and white fly and the leaves are shiny with their excretions. I walk underneath and am assailed by the tiny insects.

Apart from the white climbing roses we have a pink one behind the shed but it seems to like showing most of its flowers to next door.

And the old rose I was given by my aunt from the garden at Wormleighton Manor is thriving nearer the house.

At the back of the house the golden showers rose I got as a freebie with an order from David Austin loves its place against the wall.

More pics, lambs' lugs, the daisy bush by the cattle grid, golden sedge by the pond, the Beauty bush and friends by the lawn, a red rose, an oriental poppy, 

And finally the banking of wonderful white rosebay doing its thing.