I took this picture not long after sunrise earlier this week. A hungry cat woke me up. Listening to the birds and looking at the sunrise I really didn’t mind the early start too much.
I’ve picked a few flowers for the house, although unless a storm is coming I do prefer to leave the roses in the garden instead of cutting them for a vase. Perhaps in future I might find room to plant some just for cut flowers, if there’s a suitable spot to squeeze that in. 🙂
In the last few weeks the roses have been marvelous. The new-ish rose bed is looking pretty glorious, the honeysuckle is in bloom and it smells amazing here sometimes.
When we planted this new rose bed I wanted to use the colours of sunrises and sunsets, with oranges, pinks, peaches and reds, and golden tones. It is far from perfect but brings me great joy.
The wild rose is in bloom, and smelling very sweet.
I see these wild roses in bloom in the hedgerows all around here in Somerset. It’s lovely to have them in the garden. This plant had a serious haircut recently, as it was totally overgrown and entirely hiding the birdbath. The stems made a lovely display in a big vase, and over the course of the last week or so new buds have opened every day.
My lovely husband cleared the bed by the bench and birdbath, which had become overgrown with vinca, rose and fuschia, and we’ve planted out some new bedding into this space. The cat sometimes likes to snooze here.
The other newish border, which we call the horsey border, is also coming along nicely. As the forget me nots are finishing the astilbe, roses and foxgloves are beginning to bloom. I know the forget-me-nots are going over and Lord Monty Don of GardenWorldia says its time to pull them up, but NO! Not just yet.
The horsey head statue was in the garden when we arrived. The horseshoe clover is an addition from a nearby junk shop/ antique boutique. It was sold with the story that these are horseshoes from William Fox Pitt’s yard in Dorset. He’s one of the winningest event riders in history with 14 five-star victories to his name plus multiple senior championships including five Olympic Games. It may be a tall tale, but I like to imagine these were prize winning horseshoes.
We’ve had some wonderful wildlife encounters by the pond, including this beautiful demoiselle damselfly.
And there’s a blackbird family nesting in the apple tree. We see the birds hopping around the lawn, following us as we dig over the soil, catching worms and bugs and taking them back to the nest.
To see more garden highlights for six on Saturday, visit the garden ruminations blog. It’s a cracking selection this week.
Have a great weekend,
Jen x
The rose bed sounds beautiful, and if it pleases you it’s perfect. It certainly looks lovely in your photos. Happy Six on Saturday!
We must have blackbirds nesting somewhere close as they’re often in the garden and bold as birds feeding young often are. I’m in constant fear of them falling victim to our cats.
I have some feral cats that like to nap in my garden.
Honeysuckle? What sort is it? I just potted some very well rooted honeysuckle cuttings, but they are the common (here) Japanese honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica ‘Halliana’. That is really the only honeysuckle that I know of that is very fragrant. I acquired Lonicera albiflora and am very fond of it, but it is not noticeably fragrant. Actually, none of the cultivars that are becoming available here are as fragrant as the formerly common Japanese honeysuckle.
I love the discplay of roses. It is the one thing I miss about gardening in Portugal as opposed to the UK. I’ve tried one rose and it failed.