Today our fortnightly gardener is here. The long grassed “wild” areas are gathering flowers. In the lower garden he has found places where deer have spent the night - presumably our roe deer. The weather has turned cool and damp and the redcurrants have all been eaten by the birds. The netted veg survive. I have pruned the redcurrants hard.
The cardoon has black fly and will need treating with soapy water and this has been done.
I thought the gunnera was dead but have just discovered one big leaf deep in the undergrowth by the ditch.
The big damson by the veg beds is too big, has low spreading branches and is shading out the rhubarb and autumn raspberries. I do not want to prune it until after the harvest but . .
Andrew has mown the rougher lawn areas and strimmed the sides of the now dry stream. He is giving the beech hedge a haircut and may progress to heaving out much of the bogbean from the pond where it is choking everything else. I put it in for nostalgic reasons (it grew on the farm where I grew up) but it is a tough wild plant and thrives too well.
I am reading Lee Schofield’s Wild Fell and have reached page 297 and Chapter 18 The Future. I have always wanted to win the lottery big and buy up land, put a low fence around it and go away, let it do it’s thing. Where I grew up at Coniston on a sheep farm much was grass fields though we did have hay meadows. Then there were the more inaccessible rough areas of scrub, gorse and bracken before the high fell. Globe flowers by the beck, orchids, bog asphodel and grass of Parnassus in the wetter areas, it was where I would wander alone enjoying the wildness.
Now the area is peppered with tourists and hikers, a while ago I went to a secret place by the water to find a family having a picnic. But all things must pass as so will I one day. I took the gardener to the far garden and he had not realised we have a hidden corner tucked in the trees.
Flowers and this is the time of the brachyglottis (what a mouthful, the old name of senecio has to be better if not strictly accurate).
Elsewhere the philadelphus has been covered in flowers and the scent wafts around by the kitchen.
The shrubs by the main lawn (if you can call it that) are overgrown and mowing is done with one arm outstretched to get under the branches - pruning due. The same is true of the plants creeping out onto the main path but they do break up the sharp edges. 
The lily is so lovely.
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