"It was imprudent of us, in the first place, to become authors. We could have become something regular, but we managed not to.
We were lucky, but we were also determined." Roy Blount Jr

"I don’t change the facts to enhance the drama. I think of it the other way round, the drama has got to fit the facts,
and it’s your job as a writer to find the shape in real life."
Hilary Mantel

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Sunday Stroll: Garden in Bloom

Let's begin with roses, shall we?

Shailer's Provence dates from the 1790's. My fabled specimens are among the most towering of my rose bushes, in contradiction to their origins--a slip of a cutting from my mother's garden a dozen or so years ago. From small things come great ones.



I made a terrible error the other day in my identification of Antique 89. Noticing the intensely rugose foliage, to my embarassment I realised that in fact it was Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, a rugosa hybrid I've tried growing for more than a decade in various locations without ever once getting a blossom. This is the 2nd blossom from so far.



I can't now recall if I've got Antique 89 in the garden at the moment...my attempts with it have been similarly unsuccessful but I live with eternal hope.

Here's yet another rugosa hybrid previously featured, the effervescent Therese Bugnet.



And a single-petaled white rugosa.



Followed by a many-petalled rugosa hybrid, Snowdon. (Looking a bit the worse for rain, we had thunderstorms all weekend.)



Eglantyne, a David Austin creation. This is a new plant, I already grow her but decided I wanted another.



Honeysuckle (lonicera) rambling over the top of the garden arch.



Cranesbill geranium (geranium.)



My white foxglove (digitalis)is beating the pink ones to the post this year.



Spotting the pink lupine (lupinus) lurking behind the foxglove, I decided to photograph other spiky, pinky things...

Finged bleeding heart (dicentra.)



Perennial sweetpea (lathyrus latifolius.)



Coral bells (heuchera.)



Yes, sadly I'm the sort of garden nerd who knows her Latin names without even looking them up.

I was accompanied by some four-footed strollers.

The chipmink thinks that partially hiding behind a rock makes him invisible.



The painted turtle had just finished nest-making and egg-laying somewhere near the front rose garden. She was headed back to the little lake when I noticed her in the drive and moved her across the road closer to her destination...so she wouldn't have to go out into the weekend "traffic".



Whether you're swift as the chipmunk or slow as the turtle, I hope your strolls take you pleasant places today. To continue garden viewing, stop by Aisling's blog.


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