I keep waking just before 5 a.m. and here is the most beautiful sunrise yesterday.
I had a bowl of stewed apple which needed using up too, so I made a Chocolate Apple cake which I forgot to take a photo of before it went in the freezer.
I forgot to take a photo of the 70% Wholemeal loaf before I cut into it too. Here's half of one I made earlier!
A pretty little rose I took a fancy to at the Garden Centre earlier in the week. Keith had given me some spending money so this one "Child of Mine" came home with me. I have put it in a planter in the yard.
Today I did the grocery shopping early and went to get yet more compost at the other garden centre. I came home with a Hardy Geranium Red Admiral (which is actually an intense pink). Below:
Salvia amistad, which also came home with me today. Another good one for attracting bees.
Rambler Violetta is one one side.
. . . and on the other is Bloomfield Courage.
Planted this year, American Pillar.
Belle de Crecy.
The oval bed.
The Mullein keeps on growing and putting out even more flower spikes.
Thunderstorms predicted pretty well country-wide from midnight, accompanied by heavy rain so I haven't bothered watering round much tonight. I will have to stay indoors tomorrow because of broken-up tiny bits of pollen. Not good for damaged lungs.
What a beauty of a sunrise!!
ReplyDeleteYou really accomplished lots of baking.
Love your garden.
God bless.
If I'm in the mood, I get in a roll for baking and enjoy myself. It was indeed a beauty of a sunrise.
DeleteI am amazed at how much you get done in a day.
ReplyDeleteAh, but then there are the days where I feel I have accomplished very little! They balance out.
DeleteI bought a pot of salvia yesterday. It was a 'distressed' plant, and so I got it for $4. I also bought a forsythia bush because I have wanted one for a while now. It was distressed also, but I still paid $11 for it.
ReplyDeleteSoundslike it should have been two distressed plant prices! Hope they soon spring back into life and reward you.
DeleteThank you for the garden tour! Salvia has been short-lived in my gardens here but I always get some of the annual varieties for the tubs near the front door. I'm envious of your roses--a short blooming season for mine this spring and now begins the yearly invasion of Japanese beetles. I need to get out on a relatively cool morning and do some pruning.
ReplyDeleteYour baking suggests a mug of tea and a slice of the banana loaf!
I spent the day Friday in the kitchen preparing veg/barley soup, oatmeal bread and peanut butter cookies for the household of a friend who is down from a hip replacement that went badly. Home cooking always seems a welcome offering.
Since your mention of Japanese beetles, I find I have some in the roses now! Not many and soon squashed underfoot!
DeleteOh yes, I've had a few mugs of tea accompanied by that Banana Loaf as it really is lovely and hits the spot when I've been busy.
Well done with cooking for the friend who is nursing a bad hip replacement. I hope it can be done properly but I imagine the cost is exhorbitant - even to have it done badly. I'm sure your cooking was well received.
Goodness, what sort of Mullein is that? The leaf doesn't look familiar to me at all.
ReplyDeleteI've had breathing issues due to the pollen. We can't win, can we?
That sort of mixed fruit with cranberries and apricots is delicious! It's my go to choice now.
Good morning Jennie, hope you slept well. We had rain last night and the air feels so much cleaner. I was in the shop yesterday afternoon and it was so humid. This weather is making S feel weak and wobbly so I was happy he had cricket and tennis to watch while I was out with instructions to drink plenty of water! I need to start deadheading my roses and feeding them with comfrey tea. I have kept back some of my best kitchen waste compost to give them all a collar of mulch too. The white peonies have been over in a flash this year and I think I will deadhead them (usually I leave the jester hat seedheads) so they don’t use up their energy producing seed. The pigeons are sitting in the lilacs eating the leaves again - not sure why lilac leaves are so tasty to pigeons. But the roses, clematis, jasmine are blooming and the understorey of salvia (I have lots of different salvias as they make great companion plants to roses and thrive on my sandy soil), geranium, achillea Moonlight, Veronica in white and blue, nepeta, Astrantia, thalictrum (I have T. Aquilegiafolium with its fluffy purple flowers as well as T. flavum with its glaucous foliage and acid yellow flowers), alchemilla mollis, allium Christophii and stachys are all doing brilliantly. It’s taken me a while but I know now what will survive and thrive during prolonged drought and high temperatures on my greensand soil. The box balls, Corsican hellebores, Stipa Gigantea, Pennisetum and Panicum grasses all provide structure and are all resilient too so it is just the roses which need regular cosseting now. The parterre is a sea of flowering thyme and lavender now the irises have finished and my winter border is a WIP after removing five out of eight huge hellebores. I have potted up good sized pieces of aster summer farewell (a pretty white daisy flower) and Astrantia moulin rouge to add later and the new plantings of geranium sylvestris album and Geum rose tempo are both settled in and growing. Clematis Madame Julia Correvon is twining around the new growth of the beech hedge and there are ferns and white foxgloves here too as this is a north-west facing bed and is in shade until the afternoon. The star of our plot though is the half acre wildflower meadow which just gets better and better and is alive with life of all sorts. I adore it! You inspire me to be productive and I love that K gave you the means to treat yourself to a new rose. Keep going - it’s going to much cooler from now on. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteGosh - what amazing plantings. Your garden sounds like Bladbaen Stud garden which I follow on Facebook - I hope you open it under the National Garden scheme. How I wish I could see photos. I will note some of these down and look them up as I don't know the variety (just the family). Our choice of plants locally are the not huge variety but tend to survive the winter (and cheaper) nursery at X-gates, and the pay through the nose and no guarantee they'll survive the winter "posh" nursery, which still only stocks the commoner garden plants. No Plantsman nurseries round here. The best I can do is to go to Treberfydd walled garden nurseries, and sadly it was THEIR more unusual hardy annuals which snuffed it last winter though the very hot summer probably didn't help their cause as I couldn't water them as generously or often as I'd have liked. I am still keeping out of the pollen for 95% of the day, which is frustrating as there is still SO much to do out there, but I did get the roses dead-headed this morning, and some Lupins too. I should use some of the generously spreading Comfrey leaves to make a feed too . . .
DeleteKeith isn't good in this weather - his BP is even lower than usual. Just when he was starting to be a tiny (and I do MEAN tiny) bit more active. Keep writing these lovely posts - cheers me up no end.
It's a normal garden Mullein (probably just the same as the wild variety.) It's just coming into flower so I'll take a couple of photos and close ups of the leaves for you. It is fast taking over that end of the bed anyway!
ReplyDeleteThat fruit is my go-to now I have to say. Far more interesting than the ordinary mixed dried fruit.
Your early morning baking is fabulous, the house must smell so good. I love to bake but no one here including me should or will eat cakes or cookies, or even homemade bread. Sad....I have a big collection of beachy cooky cutters, once loved making summertime lemon sugar cookies to go w iced tea and lemonade, for beach days.
ReplyDeleteAnd your garden, so very beautiful. I hope the [Olen is not too bad and you can enjoy all the lush blooms.
I have never seen martins or swifts, just what we call beach swallows that feed on the tideline late summer evenings. [they maybe are swifts], Tiny, iridescent and white?
Enjoy the storms, how the thunder must roll thru your hills.
lizzy
Be careful what you wish for - here in Maritime Canada we have a saying about a red sunrise "Red in the morning, sailors take warning - red at night sailors delight." I much prefer a red sunset. Lovely garden shots. I just got my garden planted here. We shouldn't plant here until the 'new moon in June' or we can get frost.... how I wish I could plant earlier....
ReplyDelete