My favourite flowers in the garden at the moment are these
Dutch iris - the corms are as cheap as chips - Peter Nyssen have them in their newly arrived catalogue
£2.50 for 25
They last for a good while in the garden and make wonderful cut flowers - I love them plonked in a bottle for a no fuss 8 days of silken splendour.
For the past couple of weeks I've been getting emails asking when the flowers are going to reappear on this blog (probably a bit of mug fatigue setting in)
but until this week (excepting the snow drops and crocus) we have had no flowers at all
Even now they are a bit sparse - but perhaps more treasured for all that
This is my favourite pulmonaria - Blue Ensign
and the leucojum Gravetye Giants are about to bloom.
but apart from that its all about promise for the rest of the year as fluffy mounds appear in the beds - columbines, delphiniums, thalictrum and these ladies mantles.
Soon we shall be surrounded by colour.
One of the things I love most about our home is a small bluebell wood running down to a burn at the bottom of the field.
It is where we spent 90% of our time when we came to view the house. It is the most idyllic place I know.
This morning Euan and I went to check what damage the week's gales had done - we expected fallen trees, but this is what we found
a landslip has taken 70% of the wood away,
fences and trees are now piled up higgledy piggledy in the burn which has risen from a trickle to a 3 feet deep torrent.
Never have I been more glad that the house is at the top of the hill.
It will regenerate, even a couple of days after the devastation you can see bluebell bulbs poking through the mounds of mud, perhaps it is an opportunity to plant rather than leave it to alder, we shall see.
We shall wait and see.
It is a glorious day today - bright, brilliant blue.
I am in sewing really - but took time to be in the garden over lunch.
The best thing in the garden at the moment is the dogwood - its the first time I have left it to grow big enough to berry.
and it looks wonderful with the slightly dog-eared cerise asters.
and brings out the colour in the euphorbia stems further down the border.
After the soggy few days that we have it seems amazing that there is so much vibrancy amidst the grey
Though there is beauty there too.
This month the garden is featured in English Garden Magazine (we aren't the only Scottish garden in this issue - there is a great article on Cally Gardens too, which makes me blush to be in exalted company)
The photographs are wonderfully luminous - taken at the peak of the year in gorgeous mellow light by Ray Cox
and the article was written by Sue Bradley who has really captured what we try to do here
It is funny, and poignant, looking at the photos - for not only is it a reminder of the garden in sunshine and fruitfulness (we have had frosts here now so it all looks a bit shaggy and slumped round the edges) but my youngest daughter looks so young - you wouldn't catch her in pigtails now unless it was ironic.
When we moved here, about 8 years ago, there were not many trees or hedges in the top part of the land - really all that was here was a cherry tree, a few very decrepit hawthorns and a line of leyandii. We had come from a house sheltered in a glade of trees and it all felt a bit exposed, bare, and more importantly lacking in birds.
So one of the first things we did was to plant a grove of shrubs and trees along the boundary to the north - amelanchiers, guelders, rosa glauca, snowberries, dogwoods - about 50 of each.
It was one of the most foolish things I have ever done - within 10 days they had become an expensive dinner for the deer, deer that we never saw but which spent their days sheltering in the woods along the river and their nights feasting on my saplings.
We have since double fenced our land in a half hearted way - enough to deter the deer in all but the worst of the weather, but I have never plucked up the courage or amassed the spare cash, to replant the shrubbery.
However, arriving back from London last week, I noticed some brightly turning leaves in the wild long grass along the North boundary and going to look found all these shrubs - obviously resprouted from the deer chewed stumps
They look like 2 year olds, not 8 year olds, but they are surviving in rough grass, giving shelter and berries for the birds, giving a bit of brightness and colour to the dun of the field. I am assuming that, having survived the worst that weather and deer can cause they will flourish and bulk and that, in time, the lower part of the field will gain its shrubby wild boundary.
It made me glad that I never quite got around to grubbing the stumps out . . .
Today is a special kind of day, a warm blissful day, more appreciated as it is coming into what seemed a determined Autumn.
We are amazingly busy this week - Valerie packed up almost 80 orders today - but I took some time over lunch to bask a bit and take some photos in the garden.
The garden in a sudden balmy spell is an odd mix.
Some things like the dahlias look as through they are meant to be blooming - others like sunflowers, battered by the wind and rain, look as though they have survived a battle
and have a special kind of beauty because of it.
The hardy annuals - knocked over beyond rescue in the winds and left to form windbreaks - have decided to bloom a late crop- twisting upright 6 inches from the ground.
and all the greyed and charcoal-ed seed heads look amazing against the bright blue of the sky.
It feels amazing to be outside, feeling the heat.
Is there anything nicer than a sunny September morning? Mist below us in the valley, sun on our backs, wellies on against the dew?
These photos were all taken on my walk around the garden this morning - my delight is ironic as most of the flowers in these photos have been ruined from a cutting point of view by the heavy dew but their beauty is undeniable.
these daisies had their main flowering season in late May - we cut them back hard as they are horribly straggly and they reflower a bit in September
The other bonus of damp, dew filled mornings is the spiders webs
which seem to be at their best on the docks in the rough grass
it also gives the crambe seedheads one last chance to shine
Our bedroom faces away from the view - it looks over what will be garden to the single track road and a low flat morain - what would have been the edge of Loch Lomond in the ice age. It is a calm view of grey and green and blue.
This morning I sat in bed with a mug of coffee watching the sun rise through the mist and an enormous hare lolloping along the road.
Out in the garden proper, walking down the the workshop there were damp cobwebs everywhere
above this damp level, noisy birds were lining up on the telegraph wires and bees buzzing away in the warm sunshine
Looks like it is going to be another glorious day.
The times of year that I love best are those where the garden teeters between two seasons.
That is what it is like this week - walking down to the workshop first thing the grass is soaking with a heavy dew but the sky is bright blue and the sun hot.
summer flowers are still blooming, like these tripods of sweet peas
but the nip in the air has changed the colours in the garden - there are more smoky colours
like these bronze fennel flowers
set off by bright yellows and oranges with very punchy purply pinks
This is crocosmia Lucifer which grows at the edge of the garden, fighting it out with wild willowherb - I can never bring myself to get rid of it.
Even the leaves have begun to turn.
The flowers we picked yesterday for sale were quite different from those we picked last week.
I took most of these photos at 7.30 this morning - the sound of bees buzzing about was amazing - and I counted over 50 red admiral butterflies.
It cheered me up no end after the worries of watching the news last night and this morning.
