crazy

A busy week so I have neglected garden and blog. Went for a quiet amble round between rain showers this morning, closely monitored by the spugs

and something lurking in the undergrowth.

She thinks I can't see her. In her mad little cat brain she's an ambush predator stalking deer in the forest.

I cross the lawn and she leaps out, ears flat, back arched, tail in an s-bend and swipes at my ankles before galloping up to the compost bin, where she sits, innocently, with a, "Who me?", expression on her face.

If I point out that I knew she was there all the time and her behaviour is really undignified for a sixteen year old senior citizen, she looks affronted and pretends she has no idea what I'm talking about.

The garden is as mad as the cat. The roses are in bloom and getting scalded by the rain and the weigela has decided that late September is the perfect time to put out flowers.

Mad they may be, but still lovely to see so late in the year.

a peaceful potter round

The loch was in a girly mood yesterday. It started the day with stripes of pink in the sky, turning the water a soft coral grey and it ended with a serene patchwork of rose and turquoise.

Anything girly in the garden?

Not these juvenile starlings. They are putting on their studded biker plummage and acting like teens, hanging round the corner shop (aka birdtable) screeching, fighting and hassling other birds. I keep expecting to find cigarette ends littered around the table.

Here's girly. Seven days of sun have brought on a burst of fuschias. They look like something Barbie would wear to Cinderella's ball.

A red September rose. It's even scented. Something seems to enjoy nibbling on the petals.

A warm welcome

I inherited this minature climbing rose with the garden. Last year it struggled, put out two flowers then dropped all its leaves and remained a brown twig for the summer. This year it has done a little better and an unexpected week of sunshine has encouraged the last buds to open. I checked the label yesterday and discovered it was called Rosa Warm Welcome. So here is a warm welcome for everyone visiting this blog and a thankyou to all the blotanists who have made me so welcome at blotanical.com.

It's been a soft, silvery day, a hint of drizzle but no real rain, for which we are truly thankful.

I'm looking at my garden with fresh eyes. This ordinary geranium now reminds of a rock rose I saw when Amy (Go away I'm gardening) took a walk around Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin.

I wish I could remember which blog showed the clouds of white Japanese anemones. They were beautiful. There is a pink anemone in Gururajr's Japanese Garden (natch) that could be a sister to this one, though it doesn't have the bird droppings that mine have accumulated. I wish you could get no mess birds to go with the no mess bird seed!

And I know I have seen some lovely calendulas somewhere exotic recently, but my simple brain refuses to give up any more details than that. Never mind, these simple plants give simple pleasure simply everywhere.

Lavatera.....again

Not these rain dodging divas, though a week of sun has inspired them to a final flourish. Too late, they are going to join the foxgloves mulching quietly in a heap of black bin bags, waiting for an empty compost bin.





No, I’m talking about the poor tree mallow, Lavatera Barnsley. The one I planted in the most exposed position in the garden; the one that bloomed prettily for one season then spent the winter with its root ball alternately frozen or rocking in salt winds; the one that for most of its second year was a cluster of wizened twigs with an occasional yellow leaf drooping off it; the one that ended its short life two weeks ago in the wheelie bin rather than the compost, in case it was diseased.

Sigh. It was a pretty plant. So pretty in fact it inspired my neighbour to go online and order one for her garden. This arrived, a healthy little plug plant, in the spring and responded rapidly to the care of a competent gardener. In a couple of months it had achieved almost a foot of growth and was covered in buds.

Then Angus ate it.

All of it

There was nothing left.

Not even a twig to propagate.

Oh, the wailings and gnashing of teeth. Angus had his hairy bottom soundly spanked. (Perhaps I should point out that Angus is my neighbour’s puppy, not her husband).

We commiserated with each other but were both aware there was one more Barnsley tree mallow in the village. This one was in a garden right by the shore and was thriving, obviously well adapted to its salty, windy habitat. The elegant flowers could be seen, blushing daintily, over the fence as less fortunate gardeners drove by with hot, hungry eyes.

The temptation was too much to resist. Last week my lovely neighbour stopped her car and asked the lavatera’s owner if she could have some cuttings. Gardening and generosity seem to go hand in hand, as the cuttings were happily supplied and four of them have been passed on to me.

I have no doubt that my green fingered neighbour will get her mallow established. I’m less certain that my brown, blighted thumbs will have similar success. Time for a quick prayer to the patron saint of lost causes.

Alien abstraction

Still not raining. I reckon aliens are visiting in the night and sucking all the water out of the sky. I caught them at it this morning.

Choppers, coppers and hawkers

Another grey start but the sun soon burnt off the clouds and we had a spectacular day.

This helicopter buzzed the garden several times. Don’t know what he was doing, just playing around I suppose.

This is a Scottish garden, so I should acknowledge that the heathers are out.

But they don’t ring my bells. These are much prettier, the last sweet peas of summer.

And this looks like the last copper butterfly. He’s very much the worse for wear, with a huge chunk missing from his wings.

I saw another dragonfly! Not a good pic but he was in an awkward position. I think he’s a male common hawker. That’s two different species in the garden. Both males. I wonder where all the girls have gone.

A beautiful day

A grey morning but a promise of sun gleaming on the far side of the loch.

A heavy dew overnight left the quinata sparkling with miniature crystal balls on every tip.

The sun soon broke through and encouraged Smudge to behave like a floozy........again.

The garden was suddenly buzzing with insects. This is why I let the hawkweed stay, the bumbles and hoverflies love it.

I discovered this lovely lady by the wheelbarrow. She is beautiful and is catching midges so it looks as if the wheelbarrow is out of bounds for the moment.