Decisions, Decisions

Hello Friends!

Well, I didn't go to the Open Gardens Weekend.  I am deeply disappointed, but I think it was for the best.  I wasn't feeling 100% yesterday, and by the time I got myself together, it was gone 1:00 p.m. and I had already heard from several people that it was very busy and crowded, with queues for some of the smaller gardens.  I shied away.  Today was a tad cooler, but I feared the crowds which I don't get on with these days, not since I have to use my rollator.  Walking aids and a lot of people do not mix well.

So, I stayed home and took some photos of my rambler rose, a David Austen "Frances E Lester" which is incredibly fragrant, and particularly splendid this year.  There was also a Tesco delivery, well I could hardly be out for that, could I?

My neighbour opened her garden to the public, but only on Saturday, so it was closed on Sunday.  It goes without saying that I was back and forth to my door having to tell the disappointed public that no, it was not my garden, and the one they had come to see was closed.  I ended up making a quick A4 poster to put in my door!

I am now in two minds.  This rose is incredibly fragrant, and I am desperate to make an oil infusion with the petals, but it is so magnificent that I don't want to spoil how it looks.  I keep saying that I have taken photos so the memory is preserved, and in a few weeks it will be bare again.  Picking the leaves will not prevent or affect the hips from growing but will preserve the fragrance.  Even so . . . 

Until next time

💙🌷💙

Then It Rained, Then It Stopped

Hello Friends!

A few days before the Summer Solstice, and after days of such changeable weather, from hot to mild, with sea fog followed by blue, sunny skies, one morning we woke up to an unexpected rainfall overnight which carried on well into the day before finally moving on.  So, we had raindrops on roses to bring Spring to an end for this year.

A rainy day wasn't the best day for my Betty's Smile rose to open, but open she did and looked rather more Hollywood glamour than west Wales cottage garden as she shimmered with a cloak of sparkling raindrops.

By mid afternoon the rain had passed over and, once again, the sky was blue.  It doesn't take long for everything to look refreshed and restored.

My climbing  clematis {which never seems to thrive as a plant, but does put out lovely blooms} became twisted and bent over in one of our earlier storms.  It never straightened up, now all the flowers are opening up from underneath, so I have to route around to find them.

Do you remember the incident of the badly damaged dwarf clematis a few weeks ago?  It looked like this

Well, a lot of those flower buds survived, tightly closed.  They've started to open, but things are very wrong indeed.  The flowers are half their normal size, and they are completely the wrong colour.  However, I'm relieved to see a few green shoots appearing.

Here's how it should look in photos taken in previous years.

This has got to be my favourite spot in the garden right now

It's such a happy space, sitting in the warm westering sunshine of an evening which heralds the arrival of Summer.

Mind, on the first official day of Summer, I think it has decided to have a lie in, just like Spring did!  Should we give them their cards?  You're Fired!  So, this little baby Blackbird was confused, didn't know whether or not you can sit on the sun lounger if the sun isn't shining.

Flowers continue to delight, and I was delighted to find this wild Field Poppy sprung up in a wild corner.  One of the joys of wilding your garden spaces!

The Orientals continue to delight

and you know I can't resist a macro shot!

or two, this is the clematis

This wasn't easy, the Verbena Bonariensis is a whippy, bouncy stem in the wind!

The bronze fern is growing well, and I'm now reluctant to move it

The yellow roses just go from strength to strength this time of year.  This plant was from B&Q and is now fourteen years old.  All the expensive David Austin yellow roses given for the same occasion didn't last a year.  It just goes to show that cost and name don't always equal the best value.

Personally, I'm not a fan of all these celebratory roses.  Mum and Dad got given six ruby wedding ones followed by eight golden wedding ones and where do you find room for them all?  Everyone thinks they've given you a great gift, when all you have is a headache finding room!

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Lazy Hazy Days

Hello Friends!

Glorious Summer has arrived! Much of the United Kingdom has basked in, or suffered {depending on your view} a heatwave of record proportions. Here in the west, the high, often stifling temperatures have been tempered by the soft Summer breezes that billow in from the ocean that surrounds the land I call home.

Warm days, often accompanied by warm nights, have kept us happy for days, and the odd sudden and sharp Summer downpours have been greeted as they cool us down and refresh the land.

I have been busy in work, so I have not been out and about enjoying the languid days as much as the people I serve in the information centre and shop, but I am happy meeting and greeting, and doing what I can to ensure others enjoy their visit to my home.

The garden pots have needed regular watering. As much as possible I use grey water.  The lawn is more yellow now than green, and I do not water it, but grass is tenacious and it will recover once the heatwave passes, as it surely will.  Laundry dries quickly, and bedding is strewn on airers in the garden to freshen and puff up in the bleaching sunlight and fresh breezes that blow. Those same breezes make the Verbena Bonariensis and Wind Anemones sway and dance delightfully, bringing soft rhythm and colour to the borders as the earlier blooming flowers fade and turn to next year's seed.

Yesterday was the birthday anniversary of Beatrix Potter, a particular heroine of mine. To me, she is so much more than the authoress of Peter Rabbit and other children's books, the tales of which many of us grew up with. She was a born countrywoman, with an unsurpassed natural love of the land, the countryside and it's ways; she was an illustrator whose work leaves me in awe; above all, she understood the importance of land management and her bequest to the National Trust left a legacy from which strong foundations were built, making the National Trust the respected organisation it is today.  Her legacy was so important to the Trust that they have named their  Central Offices in Swindon Heelis {her married surname} in honour of her.  

A few years ago I painted this little water colour, copied from one of her own, in her honour.

A parish fundraiser caught my eye, so off I went for a Strawberry Cream Tea treat. I arrived in good time for I wished to beat the crowds that would later pour in.   It was a delightful afternoon, and a perfectly lovely spot to sit and enjoy some refreshment.

On my way home, I stopped a while amongst the old and ancient stones that mark the silent resting places of the sleeping people of the parish gone long before, and glancing through the shady trees I saw the old part of the new cemetery and the former Cathedral caretaker's house, Sunny Bank.

The sudden Summer burst of colour in the garden is slowly winding down, but here's some of what is still doing well in my cottage garden.

The blackberry vines are in full flower and already many sprigs of berries are formed, so if we have a good and heavy rainfall soon then the crop should be a bumper one this Autumn.

On Thursday next the calendar turns to August 1st ~ how, my friends, has this come around so quickly? Soon we will be hurtling into Autumn, my most favourite season of them all.  Fruits to be foraged and harvested, Winter stores to prepare and put up!  A busy time in the kitchen coming soon.

Until next time
Deborah xoxo