Sleep or not to sleep

DSCI0008 (2)The hottest day of the year and we are told it won’t get much cooler tonight.   This concerns me.  We all have skills, things that come naturally to us, we excel in activities that others may struggle over.  This might be watercolour painting, tightrope walking or ventriloquism.  Mine is sleeping.   Generally it takes approximately 30 seconds from when my head hits the pillow to be transported to an eventful and energetic dreamland.  This will last uninterrupted until I am roused and brought back to this other reality a minimum of 8 hours later.  I don’t wish to brag, but I can say without fear of contradiction, I am pretty darned good at sleeping.  Being the possessor of this extraordinary talent is unfortunately a double-edged sword.  If my sublime nighttime slumbers are disturbed by worries, Motorhead practicing next door, or hot Hot HOT I am like a damp flannel the next day.  Unlike some great and not so great statesmen and women I cannot exist on two 10 minute power naps a day.  I need sleep, and I need a lot of it.  After a day acting like a human solar panel, I will probably be releasing some extra heat myself overnight.  So the prognosis is not great for tomorrow, sorry L&L I might be a little groggy in the morning.  If I go missing you might find me curled up behind the camellia, snuggled up in the Alchemilla mollis.

Salvia “Violette de Loire”

IMG_3614 (2)In the Rodgersia Queen’s garden this Salvia “Violette de Loire” gently smoulders in a sunny corner.  Not only is she sophisticated, but earthy and sensual, quite at home reclining on a chaise longue in an 18th century French boudoir.  The violet and deep purple flowers are as sumptuous as the velvet suit your dad wore in the 1970’s.  Actually, my dad was more of a checked shirt kinda guy but you get my meaning.  Pollen dustings show bees have been active, scattering their excess harvest as they head home with their spoils.

Pathway

IMG_3803This is a pathway doing what a pathway should.  It entices you with its curves and luxuriant planting, drawing you in like a horticultural magnet, eager to discover what delights lie beyond.  There is an intrepid explorer in all of us and a little bit of the unknown is both exciting and entrancing.  So of course I did venture forth.  And I saw a snake as long as your arm.

Not Just Another Buddleja

IMG_3890 (2)Since I began my journey on the freelance highway (posh way to say I became a jobbing gardener) in November I have often been gardening blind.  The gardens were in winter shut-down and I had to depend on the memory of owners as to what was what and where was where.  More often than not this knowledge consisted of  “I think it is blue” or “I don’t remember anything being there” or “there may be something really important in that general direction”.  Now that most of the sleepers have awakened it has been a joy to discover what “that old stick” really is and who the bunch of roots that I dug up and replanted belonged to.  I was overjoyed to discover that at the Farm they have Buddleja globosa.  Definitely not just another buddleja.

Cornflower

IMG_3899 (2)Really, truly, can you do much better than a cornflower?  It is blue in the best possible way, tough as boot leather but supremely delicate, reliable as a pimple before a hot date but never tedious, fits in well with everyone in the border but stands alone as a special one.  If one flower could shout “summer is here let’s eat ice cream!” then this is undoubtedly would be the one.  All hale the cornflower, Long may they bloom!

Deception

IMG_3859They say, “Confession is good for the soul”, so in an attempt to salve my conscience I will admit that I wasn’t being strictly truthful yesterday.  You may have got the wrong impression as to the success of my day as a whole and more specifically Hero’s and my trip to Holbrook Garden near Tiverton in mid Devon.   In truth it was a wonderful day.  If I had a tick list for what constitutes a good day my pencil would be blunt.  As it has been a week of lists I will continue in this tradition.  So let us get the clipboard out: Good company, tick, great weather, tick, homemade apple and walnut cake, tick, garden of delights, tick, laughter, tick tick, bread and cheese, tick, a nursery full of treasures, tick, tick, bloomin’, tick, and not forgetting an adorable puppy, ahhh tick.   Before you jump on your moped you must realise that cake and cheese are for the chosen few and you will have to supply your own laughter, good company and great weather.  Do not worry about these omissions, get your crash helmet on, the garden is reason enough to visit.  Scrub that, you better get the van out of the garage, you will be not be able to resist temptation at their nursery Sampford Shrubs.  I have visited Holbrook several times before, but each and every time it is a fresh garden that I visit.  Ever evolving, casual but adventurous, full of the ordinary and the extraordinary, enveloping and embracing.  And you may, if you are very, very lucky, get to stroke a puppy, but no promises as she is very fussy about who she makes friends with!

This is pterostyrax, I can’t remember the specific (I was told but foolishly didn’t write it down) but most likely it is hispidus.   The common name is the fragrant epaulette tree, referring to its fringed flowers.  Quite beautiful.

Expedition

IMG_3836 (2)Today myself and Hero went on an expedition to Holbrook Garden/Sampford Shrubs.  I know exactly what you are thinking and I can assure you this was definitely not another jolly.  I can assure you that there was absolutely no joy associated with our day.  None whatsoever.  At great personal risk we undertook this daunting and dangerous journey, we suffered all kinds of devilish hardships, tales of which would curdle your milk stout. Home now, battered and in need of debriefing and a double Babycham, I am so exhausted this will be a very short post.  Tomorrow I will share some of the horrors of the day with you.  Here is Tropaeolum ciliatum as a little taster of the pain and misery …..

Just Visiting – Again

IMG_3719Such a visit to Tapeley Park today!  In short it involved, amongst many other things:

Woodland walks, damselflies, chocolate brownies, lakes, putti, watsonia, a ice-house, ginormous cedars, fleabane, rudd, peonies, entwining dragons, a currrrrrrving glasshouse, white foxgloves,  bantams, peonies, topiary, raspberries, angelica, a falling grotto, flowering sage, self seeded poppies, goliath sweet chesnuts, blustering turkeys, pasties, penstemon-a-plenty, decorative urns, pineapple broom, sun, sun, sun, cobbles, spaniels, umbellifers and lots and lots of geraniums.

You should give it a go.