SUNSET STRIP

So 77 is here, click click. I can comb my bald patch. As it is my birthday it is an overcast day with rain.

Gardeners' World has said I should be thinning my carrots but as they have just germinated due to the drought and are about 1 cm high it is a bit early. The blackbirds are eating all the red and black currants and something has chewed its way into the squirrel proof seed feeder. 

We have been given a wisteria so better luck this time. We will try to grow it along the front of the house.

R is feeling a bit faint as I have tidied my room, well, do not open drawers and cupboards. Anyone want a didgeridoo or a rainstick?

I put the trail camera on the pond and got 300 damselfly images and one heron. Well the plastic heron now so white it looks like an egret and then a mallard too.

In the garden light is so important casting shadows, illuminating plants and adding an extra dimension. Here the white rosebay competes with the afternoon sun.

The sun on the grass in the very top area accentuates the sense of sanctuary.

And backlights the white birches.

One thing I note is texture especially in bark - the peeling on the birches and here I have found the big eucalyptus has developed cracks, perhaps after the drought? They seem quite deep and apparently when rains resumes the tree grows rapidly, splitting the bark. The tree should now produce resin to seal the wounds.

We have red colour, valerian self seeding on the way in and by the path Rosa mundi. The latter was several cuttings from one plant, a favourite of R and I propose to take more later in the year.

And yellows - loosestrife between the pond and the hedge, several senecios - whoops now called brachyglottis I think - below the house with the contrasting grey foliage.

So as the wheels of time grind on and our garden, once bare, now seems to becoming a small wood, I shall go a chase the blackbirds from the berries (not that it does much good), watch the pheasant with the limp and swear at the grey squirrels as they climb our cherry and not only eat the birdseed but the feeders as well.

Time for a cuppa and a chunk of lemon sponge cake for my birthday.