27. March 2017

The garden is a burst of bloom right now, which gave me the chance to snip quickly this evening. As my day went otherwise than planned, I found myself in a race with the sunset and, so far as the photography was concerned, I would have to say the sunset won. But I still have a vaseful of flowers to enjoy this week, and here they are.

15. March 2017

First a confession. Wandering around the garden today, camera in hand, peering here and there to see what is in bloom, for the first time I was thrilled with the garden. Not with the idea, or with this or that plant or combination of plants, or even with a particular piece of it all, but with the garden itself. For the first time I can feel it as a whole, however tentatively. There is still chaos here and there; the hedging must be completed; big gaps and outright errors need to be remedied;...

14. March 2017

This week there is no doubt about the burst of bloom from Lavender "Madrid". It is in full glory, much to the delight of bees. Its very deep color is an asset in the now-intense sunlight (compare with a cloudy day just two weeks ago). The Lavandula stoechas varieties are distinctly seasonal here, so I relish this mass of bloom while it lasts.

14. March 2017

Today's vase was kept quite simple in order to avoid overwhelming any of the precious flowers. They went into the smallest of my vases, the little blue handthrown bud vase.

08. February 2017

Monday. It was one of those days, in the garden at least. I went out brightly to cut flowers for my Monday vase, took a good look at the Central Bed, and changed my plans. Patching things up took priority. There have been rabbits in and around the garden for many months, and I've been pretty sure they were raising some broods directly in the garden - underneath my enormous, magnificent Gaura, to be precise. BettyTheDog had decided to take care of this problem the day before, but I hadn't...

18. January 2017

At the risk of repeating myself, the garden does seem to be just between two seasons at present. A good clean-up of the borders is in order, and in the South Border this will mean cutting back the grasses to allow more light in to irises and such. The Muhlenbergia plumes have completely faded, as have most on the Pennisetum; but they still catch the light beautifully, so I've been in no hurry to cut them..