RAIN, RATS AND WHITE, WHITE, WHITE

Why start with a photo of a multicoloured umbrella?

Because of this -

Speaking of water the pond looked like beaten metal or mercury today with its reflection. The way it can act like a mirror is one of the joys of having it in the garden.

The tree rats are still everywhere, eating and driving me nuts.
The trap - ignored here - is on top of a shed by feeders and tied up in a plastic sack. This is not to give the squirrels shelter but  to stop the nuts falling out through the wire mesh of the trap.
Talking of rats but the feathered variety - picked the first gooseberries and then went to the redcurrants - they are heavily netted. However there were not one but three blackbirds within the netting, one trapped. Managed to salvage half a pound and put them in the freezer for now.

This morning I woke at 6:10 am to the sound of R operating her sewing machine - anoraks we call it - when the children were little she made them orange waterproofs and was doing it right up to the last minute before a holiday. There was also a din from the squirrel trap but it was not a squirrel, not a jay but a wood pigeon!

To move on -
This is Osmunda regalis, the royal fern growing by the stream. Having this is a memory of the one that grew by the wall opposite the front door of the old white farmhouse where I spent my childhood.

On to white stuff - perhaps the most important colour (if it is a colour) in the garden.

Mallow left, crambe right.

White pink right, deutzia left.

Philadelphus belle etoile left achillea right.

White campanula

The feverfew has seeded itself in many places in the garden and is flowering well.
It is an interesting plant used to treat headaches and migraine.

Up on the top banking the white rosebay willow herb is splendid, has spread and this could become a problem so I will watch this plant with care.

The lawn, which is just mown field really and full of weeds - not a bowling green - and tired, could do with a feed and seed. Scratch the surface and cast seed to the ground - but which seed? I shall probably use a hardwearing mixture with rye grass.

Perhaps I should ask the wild rabbits what they would like?

Now sex in the garden?

This image of the rose Emma Hamilton in a vase shows what a blowsy lady she is.

The flower is about 4 inches (10 cm ) across and the scent is supremely heady. I got this from David Austin Roses.

Still falls the rain so time to make some jam with old fruit from last year - to make room for this year's crop - blackcurrant, I think.

R is out and I am sitting in the kitchen, a dark day and rain has flattened the long banking grass so it will be a nightmare to cut. The Aga is hissing softly and the fridge burbling by the door. The sink tap has a drop hanging from the end, never falling, time is suspended. Yet both the clocks are chiming twelve at the same time and as I look out of the window at a pair of bedraggled pigeons I think of summer holidays in Pembrokeshire, the wide expanse of Druidston Haven and sunshine.

Mind you, the way this year's weather has been so far we will be sitting on the shingle in anoraks drinking hot coffee poured from a vacuum flask and wondering why on earth we live in this cold wet country.

WOW! TIME IN THE GARDEN - A LONGERBLOG

Let me not mess - there are some stunning flowers in the garden at the moment besides the roses. So here are a few - poppy, iris, peony and another poppy. The blue meconopsis is a challenge - if I can find the right balance of shade and humidity it will thrive but so far I have failed. I think I will try down by the pond - prepare a small area with some old compost and leaf mould - and hope. Sue gave me two pots of seedings yesterday so here goes.

The last one is a surprise - I suppose I must have scattered some wild poppy seed on the banking by the veg beds at some time and voila!

Talking, well writing, about poppies I have cut back those in the oriental poppy bed, lightly forked the soil, weeded and added a bit of hen manure as a boost. The plants will regrow and hopefully we will have a second if smaller flowering later in the year.

Weeding carries on as it always does with three items this year being a pain - bindweed - less than last year, goosegrass more so and the ever spreading creeping buttercup.

The Rambling Rector roses are just getting going whereas the clematis montana is now over. Here is a beautiful example seen recently in Kelton near Castle Douglas.

This is the path leading down to the cutting bed and veg and fruit garden. The pink geranium on the right makes a good edging and geraniums are another plant that needs shearing back after flowering for a second blooming in the autumn.

These Sweet Williams in the cutting bed are biennial so they are flowering in their third year here! so something-ennial!

I have tried to net some of the red currants but every time I go down there blackbirds are hopping about in the bushes.

The rain has refreshed the pond and the white waterlilies are flowering. 

It is so good to see all the young greenfinches on the feeder as they almost disappeared for a few years due to Trichomonosis.
The chaffinch numbers seems to remain steady and, of course we have been blessed by a pair of bullfinches this year.

A young tree sparrow just tried to head the window to my study but seems all right as it has flown straight back to the peanut feeder.

Now I might like to think that my garden has some good points but Sue's cottage garden is fantastic - as is her pond (much bigger)(though she does have resident greylag geese and as they youknowhat all over the lawn in large quantities one has to watch one's step).

She also has island beds (something R is not keen on) and this mixture of violas and Sweet Williams works so well.

And to finish - some more single flowers or flower heads - Allium (I think Christophii), Philadelphus Belle Etoile and the main alstroemeria from the cutting garden - a punchy red.

Enough for now.
My golf is suffering (and so am I). And if I am suffering on the course so are everyone around as I mutter loudly to myself. 
I have not mentioned compost or Putin . .  yes I have - Ah! Well.

I shall sign off with the Mamas and the Papas singing 'It's Getting Better' then 'Dream a Little Dream of Me.'
So I'll say nighty-night . . .

Actually it is only ten to five in the afternoon.

But it is raining so . . . 

ROSES, POCKET PLUM AND A BROAD-BODIED DARTER

This is the view out of the door in the living room across the paving to the rose bed.
The bed is edged by forget-me-nots in early spring before the catmint takes over. The colour of the nepeta compliments the roses brilliantly.
Most of these roses came from David Austin Roses - Gertrude Jekyll, William Shakespeare, Emma Hamilton (as you can see 'names') and Rhapsody in Blue.

Of course there are other roses like this one which was given to us by our son-in-law's parents. This is a colour that really stands out.

Down by the cold frame is Golden Showers - a blast of yellow on a fence. 
It looks like it is just growing in a pot but the bottom of the pot was removed so its roots could spread. 
It is certainly drawing on energy from somewhere. (Actually the gooseberry bed.)





Rosa glauca (or rosa rubifolia) grows at the northern end of the bed and is an arching shrub 
two metres high. It came as a seedling from Wormleighton Hall.
It was not commonly grown until the late 1800s. It is a wild plant from Southern Europe. My aunt thought it was the original red rose of Lancashire but this is not the case - sadly.

I shall finish for now, regarding the roses - here is a view from the south showing massed achemilla mollis in the foreground. If R had her way it and catmint would be 90% of the flowers grown here.

Most of the paving by the house is edged by it and it freely self-seeds everywhere. (A bit too much for me.) (Watch this space in the autumn.)

We were out this morning with friends (the composty ones) looking at roses and stuff when there came a chattering and house martins emerged from the nest we believed was moribund - not so - we are surrounded by whirling birds. What a delight but it does not mean the grey squirrels get a reprieve - we know only too well how much of a pest they are.

Two squirrels deported today in honour of my wife's birthday (Wednesday).

Behind the big damson tree, where the drain was put in, red campion has self seeded but not as much as up in the wood where R cleared the brambles. We have a seedling carpet.

The pond is looking much more mature but a lack of rain means it is not as clear as I would like. We have had some hot weather, two days up here unlike the record temperatures in London where they have had a heat wave. All we get is a hot humid ripple.
We have our damselflies but today we had a male broad-bodied chaser in his bright blue colour.

We are well strawberried, soon to be gooseberried and curranted, not to mention plummed and a little bit greengaged - but the damsons on the big tree have Pocket plums - a fungal disease that distrorts the fruit and makes them inedible. The pear also has some die back but the Bramley Apple looks promising.

The kitchen is full of Mrs Sinkins pinks which are white and smell intensely of cloves - magic - my mother's favourite flower. We also have Dianthus Doris - a pink pink with a deeper coloured central eye - and that also smells heavenly.

We are in a spell of hot weather with thunder and rain in the evenings and nights so I shot out yesterday and mowed the lawn whilst it was almost dry.

Sometimes as I write this blog I think of how remote it seems from the real world and its inhumanity, how badly men and women not only treat each other but do the same to those creatures and plants with which we share this amazing planet.
David Attenborough has it right when he says that the continued population growth is unsustainable. (Optimum Population Trust)
If there is a God or Gods then he/she (neither is right - it?)(or both?) is in the eye of the pink flower above, the scent of the white pink, the glory of a rose, the gift of life, rain in the desert, not in some manmade temple and creed.

Now I am in trouble!

COMETH THE TIME

Cometh the man they say but where is he?
So much to be done.

It is my birthday (Saturday) and what did I do?
Not in any particular order.
Bit of shopping.
Mowed the lawns.
Bit of scything.
Got invited to a Silver Wedding Party.
Met NC in the Co-op.
Had a wonderful rendition of Happy Birthday on the answerphone from I A J and W.
Accepted emails, Facebook messages, texts, phone calls etc.
And then spent most of the day aged 68. (I was born at 10.30 pm.)(So I was told.)(Memory going so do not quite remember.)
Got lots lovely books and a DVD.
Caught a squirrel.


Now to blog on -

The big sycamore (our notable tree) is already preparing to scatter seed far and wide and everywhere. They hang in clumps from every twig.

The rose bed is getting going magnificently and as each bush is scented the perfume fills evening air.

As I sit here and look out the window we have a juvenile greater spotted woodpecker on a feeder vying with a cock bullfinch and a male pheasant heading into the alchemilla.
He is so skittish.
We have nesting birds in the privet, the beech hedge and, I think, a shrub on the banking.

One class of plants that is in full flow at the moment is the geraniums - not the red pelargoniums but the hardy perennials.

Two plants that clash rather are the dark iris and yellow day lily. One or both will need moving.

We have three types of comfrey in the garden - a small blue one given to us by S, the common one and this one with blue flowers and variegated leaves. All of them seem to self sow and need to be kept in check as they can get out of hand.

I have not made any comfrey fertiliser this year - steep the plants in water to produce and evil smelling concoction - and after diluting with water use as plant food.

Speaking of fertiliser here is some unwelcome natural stuff on the lawn - rabbit!

And whither the weather - whatever is today is different tomorrow - it is raining steadily outside, soft soaking rain bending the grass over with the weight of water. Scything will be difficult with the flattened blades pressed to the ground. Yesterday was sun, tomorrow is forecast to be dry and Tuesday to be HOT! Hot is not a word that springs to mind here very often.

And finally a pic of the pond now well endowed with its water lilies.

SEALED WITH A KISS

Yes, it's gonna be a cold, dreary summer, but I'll fill the emptiness, I'll send you all my blog every week  etc etc . . . 

Just watched a squirrel trying desperately to get its head through the bars of a squirrel proof feeder - and failing (for now).
The house martin nest in the gable is very silent and I believe the squirrel has had the eggs and the nest is abandoned - well was - suspicious tweeting coming from up there - possible a takeover again by the tree sparrows.

The garden is, sadly, full of fledgeling pigeons - 4 sitting in a row on a cherry tree branch, but then, also goldfinches feeding in the long grass to cheer me.

The lower banking needs scything if I can find the weather, the time and the inclination - actually the banking is steep so plenty of inclination. (Groan)
This is a self sown broom on that banking growing a bit close to the liquidambar (on the right). The broom needs pruning but I killed off the last one - pruned too hard - so just a light trim this time - after flowering of course.

Stuff arrived from Sarah Raven - 3 Euphorbia characias wulfenii and three Cosmos - the latter so taped into the bottom of a deep cardboard box I broke one trying to get it out. Planted them out and also the gladioli R bought at the Greenodd potato do that I had put in pond baskets - so I could fill a gap at this time of year.

The cardoon is enormous and I have a fancy to have several in a big clump somewhere as a STATEMENT.

This pansy is backlit and almost looks better from this angle - as they are south facing outside the kitchen, they face away from us. (Too many faces.)

Here is a combination that has worked - the catmint and osteospermum ecklonis.

They are by the roses. I have underplanted a large part of the rose bed with nepeta (catmint) which seems to be ok.
The forgetmenots are over and will be self sown so need to be removed.

In the fruit garden I have used the tried and tested chives as edging - and useful in a salad or as an addition to potato and mayonnaise salad (with a sprinkle of paprika or cayenne pepper on the top for colour.)

My old (well not ancient yet) friend PS from new Zealand came for lunch and take photos of the garden but it rained and rained - soft mizzle - soaked everything. Then, just before he went there was a short burst of sunshine lighting things up. He came, he ate, he drank, he took pictures and ate a large ripe strawberry. We talked, and laughed.


We went to Threave Gardens for a cuppa and a stroll. They have done much since last there including adding some Joe Smith stone sculpture like this.

I am reading Maritime Ireland, An Archaeology of Coastal Communities by Aidan O'Sullivan and Colin Breen. It makes one feel so transitory when one thinks of them fishing off the coast 10,000 years ago!
(I am also reading Geoge MacBeth's Collected Poems (Owl is a great poem) and Peter May's Blow Back - an Enzo Macleod novel so not too stuffy.) (In between I consistently fail to do the gentle Kakuro in the paper but can do the diabolical one - answers as to why on a small piece of paper by yesterday.)

We have been away in southern Scotland and walked the wonderful woods at Castramon near Gatehouse-of-Fleet - fantastic old beech trees, nuthatches and pied wagtails, sanicle by the path.
In the tree pic the footpath goes between the two trunks.

And then poppies are stupendous so here are more pics -

Glory of glories, the bullfinches are nesting in the privet at the back of the house.