The sweet peas are still flowering, and there has been snow in Scotland!
Really.
In the Cairngorm mountains in the north.
The stems are very short indeed but the scent is still srong.
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The sweet peas are still flowering, and there has been snow in Scotland! Really. In the Cairngorm mountains in the north. The stems are very short indeed but the scent is still srong.
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Well, hopefully not the last rose of summer as we seem to be having a heatwave! I leave you with this while I take a blog break. May the weather be kind wherever you are.  ..in the garden. A very pleasant 20 degrees. Some light weeding and thinking, as gardeners do, of what I will grow next year. Sweet peas Gwendoline and Anniversary, wave series petunias in lime and lilac, lots of gypsophila Covent Garden.. All the meadow areas in the front have been cut and it feels very spacious and calm. There is a little robin which is becoming quite tame.  Even when they are dying the dark coloured flowers are seductive.  They are attractive, and interesting, but I think my summer love aafair with the deep dark tones is over. We are not truly compatible, not at the deepest level... My heart is always drawn to the light. ..is somewhat curtailed due to rain, but gardening continutes between showers. I am so lucky to have both. It's been a long journey from a tenement flat in Glasgow with two window boxes! Today I picked the most luxuriant and sumptuous bunch of flowers I have ever picked from any of my gardens.  With so much warmth and rain the roses were floppy, their bloms facing the ground, so I thought I would cut them to enjoy them better, and also to prune them a bit in the hope that later flower stems will be sturdier. The clumps of agapannthus are so big now that I can afford to pick lots without diminishing the effect in the garden. I doubt I could afford to buy this from a florist! Thank you to Sheena and to Lynne who identified these gorgeous flowers I photographed in Shetland. They are argyranthemum Grandaisy series and I hope to grow them next year.  The preparation is all-important..  Charge up the cordless tools - a hedgetrimmer and a small strimmer for edging. I am taking Carol Bruce's advice to heart. She says 'With the right tools and methods it is not difficult to manage a garden on your own.' I do get occasional help with the grass and the hedges, but Jim couldn't come and everything is growing so fast..  Charge myself up with a protein breakfast.  Set up the coffee for laer.  And the hammock!  I have some pleasant company.  15 minutes with the lawnmower, 15 minutes in the hammock. I have arthritis in my shoulders but I can get through a few hours this way (I actually use a timer!). Works for me.  View from the hammock. Every cloud has a silver lining. It rained in the afternon, so I eased my long-Covid aches and pains with a daytime bath which feels great.
On a different subject, do tell me, has being made to feel guilty ever made you alter your behaviour for the better?   The horse in the second photograph makes me think of a Chagall painting! There have been many failures in the garden this year. I was going to photograph them, but who wants to see slug eaten dahlias, miserable stunted little cornflowers, pathetic trays of seedlings with about 5% germination. I even failed with 'easy' annuals like night scented stock! The peat free composts available are just waste products, not soil, and I think they may be to blame....or is it just me?  The very inexpensive little fuchsias from the supermarket have done well and are prettying up the greenhouse and hiding the scrawny and feble schizanthus which are producing plenty of flowers at the end of the straggling stems.
There's always next year! ..with warmth and regular rain the garden has grown like crazy! I am very happy with some of the new sunptuous flower colours I tried this year. Breakfast outside while I think about what to tackle that day is a simple pleasure.   Sweet pea Matucana, rose Timeless Purple and a few navy blue buds of agapanthus look great in a vase. I brought them indoors and the scent as I write this this evening is divine. ..and yet darker. Rose Timeless Purple gets even darker as it matures.  I think it gives a lovely depth to an arrangement. It's going to be a treasure.  The new rose is as sumptuous and as scented as I hoped it would be. It's standing up to the rain quite well too, poor thing!  Have you listened yet to the Jume edition of AS The Season Turns? You can hear it here.  I like to listen to it before I go to sleep. If you are new to gardening or only have a tiny space, this book by Arthur Parkinson about his flamboyant, very small garden may inspire you. He grows everything in containers and starts things off on window ledges, creating dramatic effects. It rained all day today! Caught up with the ironing.. ..that I work so hard in my garden! We have had five straight days of glorious weather. The kind of warmth that helps you relax right to the core. I had a friend visiting and we had all our meals outdoors.       Rain is forecast, so I am making the most of it! You learn to do that in Scotland.. I hope you get some lovely sunshine wherever you are.  Summer is here when the magenta gerainium flowers and the wild orchids appear in the mini meadow.. I spent much of this hot sunny day in the hammock! My word for the year - lovingly- comes to my rescue now and then. I wanted the canes for the pots to be blue but I really didn't want to be bothered painting 12 of them, until I reminded myself to do the job lovingly. It took an hour in mild sunshine, listening to the radio...I quite enjoyed it. It's all in the mindset really, isn't it. The plan is to have sweeet pea Matucana climbing the canes and underneath callibrachoa in deep purple, clary - an intense blue, rich velvety chocolate cosmos and magenta petunias. Dark and sumptous and smelling divine.   .It's that time of year w!hen the first ray of light at dawn illuminates the yellow gate.  The cornus in the middle has never had so many flowers.  The sunlight then spreads out over the rest of the garden. I didn;t intend to be up at 5am but I'm glad I was.. I grew lupin My Castle from seed last year. Perennials from seed are such good value. I have about twenty good plants for a couple of pounds. These are for my daughter's garden and I think I will grow some white ones for mine. They were very easy, and came from Chiltern Seeds  .. a sunny day makes to how I feel! Are you like this? Suddenly I am smiling broadly and am full of energy and try to fit two weeks gardening chores into two days (am aching of course). I do sometimes wish I lived in kinder climate... The flowers in my last post, which Weebly still will not allow me to illustrate, are lilac and this delightful white buttercup ranunculus aconitifolius. I love this plant and plan to have a lot more of it.  3am and all's well.  Today is cloudy again, but the paths are mown and the hedge is cut and the garden and I are ready for summer!
..planned, curated. I enjoy the dynamic in the garden between the serendipity of the parts I allow to grow wild, and the parts I very consciously design. To my eye the success of it very much depends on the clear contrast between the parts. To that end I have been trying to cut the hedges, clipped plants and mow paths through the longer grass but the weather is against me! Wet and windy so I can't use the electric mower and new cordless hadge timmer.
I have photos to illustrate this point, but have been trying for two days to post them without success - like the weather Weebly is against me! Will keep trying... |
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