THISTLEDOWN

 Teacher - Right lad what is Thistledown?

Lad - Er, sir, raining like hell?

And boy has it been raining, so much the surface of the road in the village has risen and is partly blocked pushed up by water.

Been to Connemara so no blog for a bit but gardener has trimmed the lower garden - a bit hard with it so wet. 

Paths flooded and the spring in the middle of the lawn has returned. I have been out raking clear streams and so on.

The image on the right shows then usual stream out of the wood with two adjacent new springs.

The sweet peas have been flattened and the paths are strewn with sticks blown off the trees.

Than the sun comes out to light up the very full pond, the euonymus already starting to show autumn colour and give us a little sunny hope.

That was yesterday, now the heavens are open again and decanting their load onto us.

But when the sun shines some things catch the eye - like the lichen on the great white cherry. So out to pick fruit in the rain - it has knocked all the plums off the tree but we have pears, damsons and the Bramley apples are huge.

And the Elephant grass is over ten feet tall and still growing! R does not really like it but it does give me some rather thin bamboo-like canes to use elsewhere. My son has done up a house but found bamboo in the front garden. I looked up how to get rid of it and the main advice was get in a digger and grub it out. This is not feasible where he is. Would injecting Round Up into the top of the cut stems work - like they do for Japanese knotweed - we may see, fingers crossed.

Sun is out, no it is not, yes it is, I give up - coffee time.

AND THE HEAVENS CRIED

I was woken early by the sound of torrential rain battering the garden. Later the sun came out and the land shone with that brightness you only get after a downpour has washed the dust and fumes out of the air. Water was crossing the garden in silvery sheets, erupting from previously unknown springs, even out of mole hills - the runs acting as underground pipes.

This is the mower crossing of the stream, old scaffolding planks that had been lifted and thrown around by the water.

And the breakfast table is  covered in water - too wet for cornflakes. (I have the WHOLE EARTH gluten free ones.)

As we may be having changes in the spring - perhaps the extension (reduced in dimensions by the cost of VAT) I decided to photograph the beds that will be changed to paving.

The tree on the left will go and the plants we want to keep be dug up and replanted in the veg beds.

Sometimes walking around the garden it is the small things that catch the eye - 

 A new bud on the Magnolia grandiflora,

Cardoon buds so heavy they need support,

 Or just a small rose.

The first apples (Bramleys)(cookers) have been picked, wrapped in paper and put in old photographic developing trays in the shed.

This is the big ash tree at the top of the garden. It has ivy climbing it - a hideaway for small birds - and a Rambling Rector climbing rose. There is some die back on the branches - not the dreaded ash dieback present in young trees but just old age - I suppose a bit like myself as the years pass.

The small  trees at the bottom - left the big magnolia, right the handkerchief tree.

Some plants just love the autumn like these Anemone japonica alba but one has to be careful as they tend to spread and invade others nearby. 

 And, is autumn coming through the endless rain - every day - well the roses think so - the rubifolia is heavy with hips.

Grandchildren joke - Why did Captain Hook cross the road? - 

To get to the second-hand shop.

(NB. And the Heavens Cried - 1961 Anthony Newley written by Glynn Elias and Irving Reid) (Bit sad knowing that!)

LEAVES AND ROSES

I think our fox has gone walkabout, at least is not doing his/her job - small rabbit in the garden this morning, no two rabbits nuzzling - spells trouble.

Today I attack the stream, rake out leaves, cut grass, wonder why the water has plummeted into a sink hole in the stream bed - that sort of stuff.

My friend PB wants pond plants for his new lake so have been potting up water lilies, irises and so on - a mucky job.

With November almost upon us, (we had our first frost last night), the big tidy up under way (R has done the asparagus bed ready for a mulch with compost) the garden is still full of colour.

Witch Hazel, maples, spindle tree and azalea, corals and willow stems all are lighting up the days.

There are self sown sunflowers in the lily tub (that is not strictly true - there are coal tit sown sunflowers there.) The orange version of the Welsh poppy is out again and the Michaelmas Daisies are falling over themselves.

Then there are the roses still looking glorious, Gertrude Jekyll, Emma Hamilton, Rosa rugosa, Rhapsody in Blue, something orangey and William Shakespeare. No need to say more and all of them scented.





































Just broke a tooth biting on a stoneless date - only it wasn't - shucks! More baked apples tonight.

HW told me a doctor joke - Old doctor taking out his young, soon to be replacement, on visits. Come to first house - old lady in bed complaining of the runs. Old doctor takes out his stethoscope and drops it on the floor, then stands up, examines her and tells her to stop eating so much fruit. 
Outside the young doctor asks how he made the diagnosis to which the old boy replies that when he dropped the stethoscope on the floor he looked under the bed and there was a plate full of orange and apple peelings.
Next visit and another elderly lady saying how tired she is. Same  thing - the old doc drops his stethoscope, then stands, examines her and tells her that she has been doing far to much for the church. The old lady agrees and promises to do less in future.
Outside the young doctor again asks how the diagnosis was made to which the old doctor replies that when he dropped his stethoscope and looked under the bed the vicar was hiding there.

WHURARWEE AND HALLIANA

So I am going to start with white and two of R's favourites, the white campanula that seeds itself everywhere and the white rosebay introduced to the wild banking and also spreading but under the ground. Soon it will be her birthday and she will be 21 yet again!!! I suppose this could make me a dirty old man!

I am in cheerful mood as I have yet another 6 month reprieve from Christies in Manchester so roll on the summer. It is wet as it has rained - good for the garden but not for scything - what a shame. More good news is that England are out of the World Football cup and I can enjoy a few bits of the rest of the event without stress.

I am in a not so cheerful a mood as there were three squirrels on the shed roof this morning and one then went into the trap, took out the bait, left and ate it without it going off! And there were rabbits on the lawn. And, despite all my attempts to net the red currants something has got in and scoffed the lot - there is a bird dropping here and there so blackbirds or/and thrushes? Or am I dealing with devious woodmice?

These two images show after scything by the stream (pretty dry and feeble) and the grass on the banking in front of the house - Whurarwee tribe stuff. (Old joke - get their name from being short in stature and living in area of very tall grass so all you can hear is Whurarwee, whurarwee!)

There are some better pics to come but here is one of the oriental poppy bed after assassination. Everything cut back to the bottom - but it will regrow and we might even get some flowers in the autumn. The question is - do I leave it looking like this or bung in something to pretty it up? I have just bought two erigerons at half price from the supermarket but I am not sure this is the right place. I shall have to muse upon the subject.

Let us have some pics of flowers and things - this is the banking bed below and west of the house.

And these are some of the shrub roses in front of the crambe chucking scent in all directions.

Talking of scent, I went to the shed today and wondered what the heavenly pong was by the dustbins. The clematis montana is over so - ?
Then I saw the flowers of Lonicera halliana a yellow honeysuckle with an evocative aroma.
Many years ago when the children were children we used to go to Pembrokeshire on holiday and there is a pottery in Wolfscastle where, in those days, you could throw your own pot. (Mine were such that they definitely got thrown - away.) There was an enormous halliana both outside and inside the building. That scent and the plant has followed us from garden to garden and I had forgotten I had planted one thy the shed. There are a couple of others about the place.

Good news - the rhubarb is reviving.
Bad news - the asparagus is still poorly.
We have decided to give it a stay of execution for now.

The tree sparrows are on their second brood and depositing little messages all over our bedroom windowsill - and they make a din from sunrise on.

Oh! And finally I have had to close the wooden walkway around the pond as I have put my foot through it in a few places - a mite dangereuse - un petit bit.

So I have bought some Wainwright beer in bottles and the thought is tempting - perhaps a bit later - perhaps, perhaps . . . .

SLAVES AND SLUGS

Having received considerable comment at me getting R to slave away in the garden, down on her knees, I post another image - this time she is transplanting snowdrops in the green up in the woodland fringe. Whilst she was labouring away I was picking up a few sticks and then made a cup of tea - this we drank sitting on a seat by the house. It is very useful to have a grand grafter in the family (makes up for me!). I just give her her little pink plastic trug, she dons her gardening gloves, grabs a hand fork and off she goes. She does not need winding up and runs on tea. Robots eat your heart out!

This is the view in early March up the garden from beside the pond and below the view of the house on top of the lower banking from the same place.

One of the joys of the spring garden are the clumps of small daffodils carefully placed on a corner here, at the foot of a tree there, in forgotten places after the leaves have died down.
I have plans to do more of this all across the garden. I will use the smaller bulbs as the big daffs and narcissi are better, I think, in swathes across the bankings.

Whilst I am writing I have some classical stuff playing - Canteloube, Chansons d'Auvergne, George Butterworth's A Shrospshire Lad and Che Gelida Manina by Puccini. The latter sung by Beniamino Gigli was a favourite of my mother though she also loved the singing of William Heddle Nash.
I love this music though I might suddenly change to Don MacClean singing Empty Chairs or Howling Wolf and Spoonful!

On the way down to the Wendy House we have a bank of evergreen Euphorbia now unfurling its flower heads. R loves this display and they go on for months. There are a few montbretia (crocosmia) here and an ornamental pink flowered strawberry but these latter plants are being shoved out of the way.
I will have to tame the invasive euphorbia as it tries to come up through the paths.

This small shrub covered in pretty flowers is a corylopsis - each individual blossom is a delight, it flowers before most others and does not have the harsh yellow of the common forsythia. (I know, there is a pale yellow one.)

Now I will probably be sued for adding this fantastic cartoon by KJ Lamb which I  have nicked from The Oldie magazine (a sort of cross between Private Eye, Punch and Saga magazine) but it is wonderful.

I will delete it if requested (some chance - no one from The Oldie, nor Mr Lamb is likely to read my blog.)(Unfortunately.)

No more to be said today.

I shall now depart and take a slug of something good, perhaps Irish whisky like 12 year old Redbreast?

Do you ono it is almost impossible to type with a slur.
Hic!