The colours in the garden have changed again. From the fresh greens and yellows of early spring through the delicate pinks and lilacs of late spring into the rich colours of early summer.
I love these blue hardy geraniums which encircle the top lawn; they look stunning in the late evening light. 
There is a story behind these fuscias. Many years ago my Uncle Wilf used to grow them; it was his great passion along with his union, council and labour party work. He gave my mother many plants and she gave me one which over the years grew into quite a sturdy tree like plant with a very woody stem. It moved several times with us and we took cuttings. The original plant died and the plant above is actually a cutting from one of those first cuttings. Somehow we seem to keep the memory of the original plant and my uncle in his potting shed going.
I rather foolishly put this Dahlia plant outside after its first flowering earlier this year. I looked at it a day later and it was covered in snails. Why didn't I know that snails adore dahlias? I brought it back in the house and it is now growing fresh leaves and has begun to flower again, thank goodness.
The clematis and honeysuckle are in flower. These plants have been moved about three times in the eleven years we have lived here but they still seem to keep soldiering on. 
Whilst pottering in the garden I've been thinking of three people I know who are in hospital at the moment. My brother-in-law's partner C after falling downstairs at home and breaking vertabrae in her spine, my friend P undergoing a routine but fairly serious operation and my friend M who fell at her music club meeting and ended up in hospital and now has a steel plate holding her hip bone together. I'm wishing you all well.
We bought the birdbath as a present to ourselves for our 25th wedding anniversary four years ago. We saw it one day, at the garden centre at Chatsworth, greatly reduced and brought it home in triumph. It replaced one that was in situ when we bought the house which had, unfortunately, cracked and broken in the frost the previous winter. I think it will have to move with us if ever we sell the house.
What a beautiful garden you have. glad you named those hardy geraniums, we have some in the front garden and I hadn't got a clue what they were!
ReplyDeleteRosie
I have the same geranium - when the rabbits leave it alone! It's lovely to have something in your garden that means something to you. I quite often ask for plants for my birthday as it's a constant reminder of the person who gave it to you Deborah x.
ReplyDeleteI've got two varieties of blue hardy geraniums flowering right now, they do look wonderful in the evening light don't they? I like the story of the fuschia, a lot of my plants have come from friends' gardens or have been bought at special places that I've visited. Two of these friends have died now but I always think of them when I see the plants they gave me in flower.
ReplyDeleteHope your three friends all recover fully and quickly.
You have such a beautiful garden. Have you every heard those geraniums referred to as Cranesbill geraniums? We have about three different varieties in our yard in Canada and they look very similar. They die off at the end of the summer and come up again each year. I really like them and have seen them in an assortment of colours in gardening catalogues. Lovely photos!
ReplyDeleteGillian
Lovely photo's of your colourful garden. How nice that you are able to keep the memory of an uncle alive with a cutting from one of his fuscias.
ReplyDeleteI hope those you know in hospital are soon home and well again.
You are right about the comments on the Folkestone Triennial to be honest it will take a whole lot more than a few pieces of so called art around the town to regenerate it anyway.
I have never seen blue geraniums before! Fabulous!
ReplyDeleteHi Rosie,
ReplyDeleteWe have the same blue geraniums bought at Bridgemere. Also visited Chatsworth and came home with a stripey pink rose called strawberries and cream. I think I will bump into you one day!
I love the fuschia story, plants are very personal, I agree.
thanks all for your lovely comments!
ReplyDeletegillian, I think cranesbill is the native name for these kind of geraniums. We also have a wild geranium - a small pink one - which I guess would be considered a weed in the garden. If we let it it would take over ours - my husband calls this one a cranesbill:)