THERMOSTAT DOWN/UP AGAIN

 The garden is flourishing, perhaps too much? Our white birches stand tall at the far end of the garden as do the swathes of uncut grass.

Time for the strimmer?

There are long shoots and tangled thorny clumps of bramble in the wood and the bottom hedge will need laying, perhaps this winter. Unlike the blackberries in the lane hedges the ones in the woodland might flower but do not bear much in the way of fruit.

But we do have apples and pears. I have been up in the far lawn and cut out two twenty foot high osiers that have been flattened by past storms. I used my small hand chainsaw. The chain can come off and I have to be sure I put it back the right way around.

One gnarled old willow is sprouting vigorously and there are signs of ash dieback in some of our mature trees. To remove them would be very expensive so we watch and wait.

We may not have many butterflies though yesterday I noted a few gatekeepers and a couple of small whites. We do have plenty of buddleia flowers if they are hungry.

I do like plants that sow themselves, well some like the feverfew and mulleins and woundwort. Others seem to grow well even in the untended areas - yellow loosestrife and acanthus. The former is, of course. a wild plant. The red flower on the left is good(?) old Lucifer.

And then there is the gunnera getting bigger and bigger.

Not far away is the pond and wild plants - greater willow herb (though this seems everywhere this year), the fat pods of the yellow flag, meadowsweet and thistledown.

So much going on and so little desire to do stuff. Anyway it is raining again.

A TIME TO WEED, A TIME TO HACK

 The garden is out of control, well my control. The bottom hedge is fifteen feet high, the paths are overgrown and hedges sprouting. The grass is waist high and the wildflower meadow is desperately short of most of the flowers I sowed etc.

We are short of butterflies and bees, veg is being eaten by rabbits, mice, snails, slugs, pigeons but not us.

Everywhere is so lush, so prolific and with the warmth R has bought a white agapanthus to join the blue and put out the aeonium in the same bed.

She weeds and weeds especially the creeping jenny that has s-p-r-e-a-d.

Elsewhere we have two flowers on the big magnolia and other stuff - 

And for some reason it is a hydrangea year -

Elsewhere we have yellows, violas and roses, daisies and alchemilla.

Well, the latter is a greenish yellow but seems to love falling over the paving

The rue has been splendid and now we have the orange day lilies.

At this point I was going to upload more images but the blogger is not behaving so that is all for now, more soon.