PATTERN NOT COLOUR

  A garden is mostly green and within this there are shapes and patterns, not just topiary but in the leaves themselves. So out I went with my camera and took monochrome images as below.

The garden is full of shapes and sizes, shades and hidden corners if we just look, not just at the swathe of dahlias and carpet of geraniums but into the diverse world of undergrowth - bark texture and colour, even the soil itself.

Having said that I am not averse to a splash of calendula, the blue of the agapanthus nor even the white of  plastic heron turned egret.

THERMOSTAT UP AGAIN?

Not for long. It is August and struggling to 13C!

The Hydrangea Annabelle is heavy with rain and bent to the ground, the agapanthus are going over, we do have the odd flower on the big magnolia but the old Rosa rubrifolia has been blown sideways.

One thing about the Hydrangea is it does make a good toupee.

Yellow daisies come and go - the helianthemum on the right is just coming out.

Down at the pond R has coerced the gardener into the waders and he has cleared out a lot of the plants in the water, leaving them on the side so the bugs etc can climb back in.

He has also trimmed part of the lower garden though I have to say that despite all efforts the wild flower meadow is more of a bog with yellow pea in it. Where has all the yellow rattle gone?

Still the gunnera flourishes and we have our dragonflies patrolling their flight paths. This, I think, is a Migrant Hawker.

No video this week - left the camera by the pond and the wind blew a bladed of grass black and forth across. There were 546 short videos of the grass moving.

I have trimmed the beech hedge and pulled some of the creeping thistle from the manure heap. One thing that spreads all over the place is the Tutsan.

A very good spreader though is the marjoram. And useful in the kitchen too. The insects love it.  

And for some reason known only to itself the rhododendron has begun to flower again.

What should I end with - how about an evening pint of cider by the sea.

STILL WAITING

 For summer up t' north.

Yes heat in the south but here rarely escapes the teens in Centigrade. 

And WET!

I have picked our six or so damson trees and almost three fruit a tree.

The blackcurrants are pruned and some of the damson suckers removed. I used some of the pruning to shove in the veg bed for future trees. They root so easily if left alone. 

R weeds on assiduously. 

I know R does not like my Elephant grass but I do. I suppose one day I will come home and find it gone?

The bay tree outside the kitchen window was too big and we have bay elsewhere so out came the saw. It may not be up to Monty Don's standard of lopping but it will do.

The rosa rugosa by the washing line is both flowering and fruiting as is the white version in the top hedge.

And is autumn upon us - the euonymus is turning - too early I cry.

We have eaten our first Bramleys and there are conference pears ripening on the kitchen windowsill.

The big white hydrangea is gathering its pink tinge - ?autumn.

This rose was a gift from our children and is called The Poet's Wife.

Sometimes wandering a garden with  camera one sees interesting shapes and so on - this monochrome of spreading branches was taken at Holker Hall.

And her we have alchemilla leaves and creeping thistledown.

Sometimes when mowing the lawn I have to rest and do so on and old hen box from our previous owner backed against the far wall. From there I can look across the garden through the white birches to the eucalyptus. I am sitting under an ash tree suffering with dieback so that makes two of us - and as it is over the wall in the farmer's field not much I can do.

Hello, it has gone dark again and there is a warning out about thunder and heavy rain - what a surprise!

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.