Retirement: week one. The Summer Garden

I've now been retired just over a week and I don't seem to have had time to sit down.

I know there's lots to do around the house and in the garden... I've had to dead head and prune this rose around the door (Paul's Scarlet) so it will produce another flush of blooms later in the Summer.

It's now officially Summertime - poppy time!

We have a number of varieties because we both enjoy them. our favourite is Patty's Plum but we also have small Californian poppies,

and, of course, the garden's full of roses at the moment.

I've forgotten the name of this white rose but it's one of the best and fragrant too.

Just Juliet

Handel

Just Juliet can always be relied on to look wonderful and Handel is exquisite and beautifully scented.

The bottom of the garden where we redesigned it before having the lawn put in has come on quite well and is beginning to look settled. Paul's Himalayan Musk looks wonderful falling over Cleopatra but the laurel hedge will have to be cut hard back in the Autumn and, with it, some of the rose. It's so vigorous it probably won't even pause.

Pleine de Grace is coming into its own where it grows over the shed. It produces good hips in the Autumen so I'll wait until deep Winter to cut it back after the birds have had their fill.

We have a real love of rambling roses. This is one of the best known, Rambling Rector. It can get out of hand if not watched carefully.

 

 

Of course, one of the great things about being retired is having the opportunity to take Molly for a walk whenever I feel like it. I can choose the best part of the day and go and admire the dog roses and say 'Hi' to the rabbits.

 

Summer, of course is not without its hazards; here are just a couple:

This is where the new lawn is lifting at the edge. I wondered what had caused it until I saw a molehill just off to one side. We've never had moles in the garden but it looks like we've got them now. Under this edge, there's a long tunnel. Plainly the disturbed soil made an easy dig for the mole.

And this, much more difficult to decipher as a picture, is where a birds nest is lodged behind our digital TV dish and disrupting our picture. I don't know whether there are young in there, but we're going to have to get up and have a look.

Our days were of wine and our paths through roses

High Summer and outside the garden, the area is being colonised by foxgloves (and also by bindweed, but I pulled most of it up).

The hedgerows are full of dog roses

Our new elms are flourishing;

... and the farmer behind has made his first cut of hay.

Where the may blossom was full of perfume, berry production is moving apace.

And the dreaded lily beetle is at it again! (Look just under the leaf in the centre.)

I got this one anyway!

Opposite the back door, the trellis is burgeoning (with my 'garden glasswork in the centre)

And this is Summer Song, an Austin rose.

And Albertine - great habit and beautiful scent.

Just underthe plum tree is one of our newer ones, Belle Epoque.

And, growing over the shed is Pleine de Grace - never disappoints, always full of blooms, unbelievably vigorous climber - needs cutting back hard in Autumn AND Spring, but one of the most scented roses we have.

Together with Paul's Himalayan Musk - the name says it all.

And just as you go out of the gate, one of my personal favourites: Eye Paint.

Meanwhile, in the hedgerows, the brambles are in flower - should be a good blackberry season to come.

If I can get past the usual vicious thorns.