Everything!! Well not quite but after our slow spring, the current 35C heat has made the high summer perennials all pop at once and I finally feel as though I have colour in the garden. The annual cutting flowers are straggly but will provide more flowers as the perennials start to look tired. If I say the cut flowers are not everything I hoped them to be, they are not and it sounds like I am complaining about them but I am not! Such is the life of a gardener.

This is the first year I have dedicated more of the garden to annual cut flowers and I am quickly learning which ones I will grow again and which ones I will not. This is the common dialogue of a gardener; ” Come next week the chrysanthemums will be blooming”, “Oh too bad, you just missed the roses”, “I’m afraid the Sweet peas have greenfly this year” ,”Oh last year was so much better for the beans.” and so on. Gardens are never finished and we are always striving for perfection. No two years are ever alike and plants do seem to have minds of their own. Plants can be fickle depending on weather, their care takers, their companions and so many other influencing factors. We love our gardens despite all the variables, rather like a marriage, good years, difficult years, illness and good fortune, the unpredictability keeps gardens and gardening constantly interesting, fun and yes, exciting.

This week:

It has been too hot to hike far. Enjoying the garden at home is so much more preferable. A few corners: