My Garden Sings in Raindrops

Hello Friends!

I am sitting in my cottage window, sipping a delicious mug of Constant Comment tea, watching the garden sway and dance in the gently billowing breeze, and listening to the early morning music of the raindrops as they pitter patter on the panes, and splitter splatter on the stones outside. The timpani section echoes from the chimney, and the chirruping birds provide the most delightful chorus.

The birds have been singing their hearts out since early morning, just before the dawn, but for now they take the side line as today centre stage goes to the rain ~~~ my garden sings in raindrops!

What a difference a few days makes! Just last week, over the long Easter weekend, we basked in a mini heatwave with gorgeous sunshine, gentle breezes, and brightly blue skies. People swarmed to the beaches, slurped on ice creams, and I am sure much chocolate was devoured on the plethora of Easter Egg hunts across the land.

I took photographs of my garden in the sunshine, which you can see here.  Today, with the rain, the blooms look so different, and even though the skies are grey the flowers glisten and glimmer with shiny pearls and crystal raindrops.

Here are a few.

I disturbed a nest of newly hatched spiderlings ~~~ shudders! And away they scuttle!

However much we gardeners wage war on snails, it cannot be denied that in the rain their shells glisten and glimmer, and beautiful colours and patterns emerge on the self contained homes of thes voracious predators of lettuce and lupins.

and finally, a few more flowers and seed heads from the garden.

A positively purply pink party of synchronised swimming swans

The simplicity of a single blade of grass, elegantly decorated with pearls of water

and my favourite seed head of them all, the wonderful Pulsatilla vulgaris

I wonder what surprises will be flowering soon?

Until next time~~~
Deborah

When Summer Rain and A Treasure Arrive at the Cottage

Hello Friends!

Thank you, and a heartfelt welcome, to several new followers who have found their way here in the last few days. I hope you enjoy my ramblings and photography, and I love it when you join in and leave a comment to say “hello!”

Before I share what’s happening in the garden, you may recall I mentioned that my favourite author, illustrator, and Happy Person, Susan Branch, has so brilliantly and thoughtfully arranged for her beautiful bone china mugs to be made available here in the UK for all her UK followers.  Well, it has since happened, and you can buy them from Nursery Thyme in Devizes {in person or online} and guess what? My Autumn mug arrived in today’s post! I could not be happier with it, it is so perfectly Autumn, and just a darling mug, both in pattern, shape, and to hold ~ as well as to treasure!  Do you see the attention to detail by continuing the pattern down the handle? Can you hear my squeals of utter delight? Although my birthday is not for a few more months, this is my very special birthday gift to me ~~~

Perfect companions! 

Always counting our blessings

attention to detail!

I’ll take a moment to gather myself before moving on!

~~~~~

Summer rain, sweet, soft, gentle summer rain has fallen for days across the garden, and sometimes it has been not so soft, sliding sideways like needles in horizontal torrents with a rare summer gale blustering in from the Atlantic Ocean.  There’s not much to be done when the weather misbehaves other than hunker down inside and wait for the gales to blow over and make yourself comfy and cosy indoors with a big pile of books and plenty of hot tea and cakes ~~~

Once the winds and rains have passed, it is time to nip out quickly between the showers with my camera to see what is happening. Some of you know me well enough by now to know that rain on plants is one of my favourite subjects, so this morning was another such excursion ~~~

There was a little damage, my poor Verbena Bonariensis were lying down and having a rest across the path as their whippy stems failed to keep up with the lashing winds, but they are now snugly tied back up using the hydrangeas as support. The Alchemilla Mollis is also flat, but once the sun comes out and dries it, it will perk up and be resplendent as ever. It is one of my favourite plants: it fills gaps in borders well; is very tolerant of both lack of care and too much fussing; its acid yellow makes everything around it come alive with colour; and it makes a pretty addition to any small arrangement of flowers. A most appreciated plant indeed.

Everything looks pristine, freshly showered and still sprinkled with raindrops, and yes, some raindrops on roses, but no kittens, not today, I think the rain has driven them away!

The Musk Mallow is looking very pretty indeed as it wraps around my ‘corgi’ which was a gift from a corgi loving friend.   The Monkshood {which is not doing so well this year} is one of my favourite colour schemes as it has a Bindweed {Morning Glory} twined up its spike, and I just love the striking contrast of purple, green and white in combination.

"IGRAINE"

The succulents, despite the rain and cloud cover seem to be preparing a few more blooms in the cluster ~ I am looking forward to this!

And in a rare moment of sunshine, a beautiful butterfly settles on a raspberry leaf to warm its wings while opportunity strikes ~~~

Until next time ~~~

~~~Deborah xoxo

Papaver Orientalis "Coral Sea"

Gentle Reader ~~~

Today, I'm sharing with you one of my favourite stars of my flower borders ~ my Papaver Orientalis "Coral Sea" ~ a beautiful, oriental poppy in the most delicious shade of orangey pink ~~~ {the colour reproduction here does not do it justice}

I bought a small potted plant from a local, independent plantsman's garden that just took my fancy about five years ago, and when I got it home I struggled to find a spot for it. In it went though, with not much thought other than concern to get it into the ground, and it obviously loves its spot, for it flourishes ~~~ the first year it rewarded me with about eight tea cup sized blooms of the most delicate tissue papery flowers I think I have ever seen. The following year, the plant nearly doubled in size and gave me about eighteen blooms, slightly bigger, and staggered in their flowering so that the beauty graced that corner for a few weeks longer than the previous year.

In its third year, the plant was even bigger and there were so many blooms {I lost count after thirty} that I now no longer count them, I just look for their arrival and eagerly await their grand entrance, for, although short lived {only a few brief days each bloom} they are big and blousey now, each bloom around five inches across, but still of the most delicate nature, like tissue paper dresses to adorn a prima ballerina as she sweeps across the stage, delighting all who see ~~~

The buds are gorgeously green and fabulously fat, and quite hairy, resembling a misshapen Kiwi fruit ~~~

For days the slowly appear, pushing upwards from the mass of leaves that form the plant, teasing me as more and more appear in the wings ~~~

Each passing day, they plump and fatten ~~~ until ~~~ one sunny Saturday morning as Spring is slowly turning to Summer ~~~

~~~and then the real magic begins ~~~ on Sunday ~~~ as the bud bursts open ~~~ and the true beauty is revealed ~~~

It is quite unfortunate that, as the buds begin to burst, {and many are ready to do so in the next few days} a band of torrential rain and high fifty to sixty mile an hour winds is set to sweep across us from the wild Atlantic and this is not the first year this has happened ~ oh! Timing is Everything! The first few buds will be sacrificed to the weather, but after that the forecast calls for lighter winds, warmer days, with no rain so the buds~in~waiting have a better chance of showing off their splendour.

As each year turns the seasons, the plant just goes from strength to strength, and now I am watching as it spreads around a nearby rose shrub and now covers several square feet in my border! I maybe should consider seeing if I can divide the root and make more plants to spread around the borders, increasing the beauty even more ~~~ there are more Papaver Orientalis too ~ a Royal Wedding {white petals and darkest navy blue centre} and a perfectly plumptiously plummy Patty's Plum and they sit in my 'holding bed' where they, too, are multiplying madly! Hurrah for Free Plants!

~~~A Gardener's Work is Never Done ~~~

Waterfalls in the Night Garden ~~~

Gentle Reader ~~~ Last night I dreamed that I was hiding in a waterfall ~~~ then claps of thunder came, rolling across the sky, and lightening flashed and crashed, and I awoke and discovered that it was raining heavily, percolating, drip by drip, drop by drop, into my dreams, and maybe I was behind a waterfall after all ~ dream~invading rain falling in torrents, like the streams of a dream of water falling down a rabbit hole ~~~ indeed, by suffusing my sleep it brought strange memories of standing in a real surreal cavern behind Seljalandsfoss in Iceland ~~~ where a narrow path trickles behind a screen of falling water, where, with care, you can creep along the slippery ledge into the small cavern carved out by centuries of falling water and experience a waterfall from a whole new angle ~~~ it is very noisy, very wet, and incredibly wonderful!  

Here is a link to my Flickr Iceland photographs album where you can find many more waterfalls and other Icelandic treats ~~~

Rain fell, curtains of water, drenching the parched earth, and the sky across The Shire was grey and heavy; somewhere in the distance the grey fields reached up into the grey sky but where they met no human eye could tell ~~~ all was grey and wet, sodden after night~long hours of heavy grey rainfall, blown sideways in the grey winds of former Hurricane Bertha, falling as if squeezed from some giant grey bath sponge hidden in the grey sky being rung out by a massive hand hiding in the grey clouds, so as to fall upon the grey land below in great grey sheets of water ~~~ 

The winds are freshening now and apparently will blow with ferocity later this afternoon.  The sun is shining, all is bright and shiny and fresh, clean and green, with flashes of colour from the few tenacious blooms that survived the onslaught of the night. Later, I will survey the damage, which doesn't seem, at first glance, anywhere near as bad as it could have been; watering cans are not needed today, but as ever ~~~ 

~~~A Gardener's Work is Never Done~~~

Blissful Rain ~~~ Introducing Whilber ~~~

Gentle Reader ~~~ Are you like me ~~~ totally and completely besotted and obsessed with that most enchanting of all the seasons

~~~ Blissful Autumn ~~~ 

Are you impatient, and cannot wait for the days of heady Summer heat to cool to more bearable warmth, for the leaves to turn colour and fall from the trees, for the days of hot chocolate, mittens and scarves, and long walks in the countryside of the turning year?   

I could not wait a moment longer, and as soon as I was able to turn the page on my Susan Branch 2014 wall calendar, {I have just ordered my 2015 ones} so I have changed the background here on our little corner of The Shire to one of my lovely sunflowers pictures from previous years and the colour scheme is now more Autumnal too ~~~ soon I will put an Autumn themed header in too, but for now there is one of the corner with all the oregano and lavender in ~~~ I hope you like the changes ~~~

The sky, grey and gloomy, heavily humid for days, emptied blissful rain upon the earth, and all is glistening and fresh, the dust of weeks is washed away, the air this morning cooler, clearer, and all together very pleasant indeed, despite the sky still overcast.  The grass, dry, parched, and brown, will soon be growing green again and the Garden is cleansed and refreshed by beautiful, blissful raindrops ~~~ sometimes gentle, sometimes heavy and torrential ~~~ as you will see from the amount of water collected in Whilber {oh, I do not believe you have met Whilber, so, Gentle Reader, may I introduce Whilber?}

Whilber is one of two Welsh names for wheelbarrow ~ the other being berfa ~ so Whilber is what I have called my wheelbarrow. This one is actually Whilber III but we do not upset Whilber by adding the numbers to his name.  He is just "Whilber" ~~~ and I could not be without Whilber's help in the garden, for he carries many heavy loads for me, compost, rocks and stones, even when I have many bits and bobs to move from one spot to another, Whilber is my constant gardening companion and friend ~~~ 

The rain lashed against the windows of the cottage all night long, and this morning there was quite a depth of water in Whilber so I pulled out a measuring stick and there was just over four and a half inches since yesterday morning!  That is a lot of water in two days.  Of course, it isn't an official measurement, but it does go to show that the garden does not need watering today!

I took advantage of the Summer rain to pop some of my houseplants on the patio during the rain ~~~ the gentle raindrops wash away the dust that is impossible to do on such a fullness of growth on cacti, succulents, and ivy, leaving the plants refreshed and clean once more {in the Winter, I pop them in the shower, but the rain is so much better for them than chemically treated tap water} ~~~

Of course, dewdrops are everywhere this morning, and here are just a few more pictures of dewdrops on blooms and flowers ~~~

I love how things reflect in the droplets as they dangle from the plants ~~~ 

The rain will swell and ripen the few remaining raspberries in the berry patch ~~~ but picking is slowing down now and will soon be over ~~~ doesn't this look so tempting?

Small branches of bramble, laden with a promise of blackberries, bounce in the breezes that drift across the garden ~~~

Soon, the nurturing rain that fell will make it's way up the thirsty stems and swell the tiny fruits into plumptious purple jewels of fragrant berriliciousness ~~~

See how they are already in different stages ~~~ some swollen and darkening to ruby red and the colours of wine, others just behind but still green, and some only just starting to form as berries ~~~ all will be picked and turned into my very favourite Apple and Blackberry Crumble, served with lashings of custard ~~~ if the pick is good, then Blackberry Jelly will be made too! 

Oh, wouldn't this last one {above} make a wonderful colour scheme for a room?

Today, I must start the task of deadheading the lilies, to let the goodness that is in the leaves return to the bulbs and not waste the energy of the plant into making seed!  Sadly, the rain has washed away the Stargazers, so I hope the remaining tight buds will open after the rainy spell has passed us by ~~~ my reward for the job of deadheading is this ~~~ 

My September Country Living magazine {UK copy} just arrived through the letterbox and plopped on my doormat ~~~ it is my most favourite magazine, and right along side you see my most favourite mug ~ my Emma Bridgewater "Rose and Bee" mug {which I notice needs to be refilled!}  I just love the sofa on this cover, don't you?  Well, the weather will have to change very quickly if I am to do the deadheading, so I might just reward myself sooner rather than later! I am incorrigible ~~~

Whatever the weather, there is always work for the Gardener, so remember that ~~~ 

~~~ A Gardener's Work Is Never Done ~~~