Sunday, August 23, 2009

Sunday Swoop Round the Garden 23rd August 2009

Artist Trading Cards

It rained most of last night and this morning and finally stopped about tea time. We are awash! I did get out and take some photos though - I thought it was about time. Just before that, I'll show you my ABC/ATC for the letter 'O' that I have just done, it is 'O' for 'Ornament'.

It's a Christmas tree ornament, of which I have many! This is going to Marianne in The Netherlands. I have just received her 'M', which is for Maneki Neko, a cat of some sort but it is very beautiful, as are all Marianne's ACTs.

The colours are much brighter than my photo shows.

The Deenery Garden

As usual there are rather a lot. You may have to make more than one visit! What a cheek I have:

A white cornflower. Rachel (Leatherdyke UK) loves these, and lupins - coming up.
Dahlias in the front garden

This is the second flowering for this pretty pink and white fuchsia.
Jim sowed these annual delphiniums from seed. More below:
The one above is such a delicate blue.
As is this one from the Arboretum bed.
The geraniums are still flowering well.
This pretty yellow begonia is struggling underneath some tomatoes.
As is this one, but I just love the shape of this - before it opens.

The white lily flowered today, here are the stamen.
The white lily with more buds coming.

Isn't the bud a wonderful shape?

The gladioli are still flowering well
This one is a sort of lime greeny yellow and has frilly edges to the petals.
More wonderful cactus dahlia and orange ones below:

Lovely tall pink phlox in the front garden.
This is the same bed, to the left of the phlox. It's a bit dark at the bottom but you can see yellow achilla, crimson cosmos and purple liatris. If you look carefully you can see Jim and some of Buster!

BlackJack decided to get into the act! Here he is among the African marigolds and gazania.

Fabulous dianthus at the bottom of the Fairy Hill.
The path at the back of the Sleeping Shed was a river today!

The pink hydrangea head with a little green spider. It's probably waiting to catch that fly on the right of it.

At the bottom of the Fairy Hill, this stream appeared today. It's usually just a ditch.
You can see the phlox I pictured before behind the yellow lupin.

The Grotto bed is thriving. This is a montage of it. The fern on the left is doing incredibly well.

Another montage, this time of the montbretia, which we have in abundance all over our acreage.
I love this pretty buddleia which is by our gate. There is also a huge bush in the orchard.

There aren't many roses in flower at the moment, but here's one bud that's survived the deluges.
Plus this rather delicate pinkish white one.

The Arboretum bed is looking amazing, really full. Here are a few photos of it:
Another lupin, I love the colour of this against the black sambucus.
The purple one also makes a good contrast.
A long shot from the house side.
One of the perennial delphiniums which Jim grew from seed this year. They shouldn't flower until next year but nobody told them that.
A pretty pale pink and white dahlia.
This one has been stunning.
As has this, with the little white tips to the petals.
Sambucus 'Black Lace' with a pink cosmos flower behind it.

A joiner I did of the arboretum bed. It's a bit washed out I'm afraid. If you click on it it's much clearer.

On the other side of the Arboretum is an acer and fuchsia bed. These have flowered non-stop.

Here is the fuchsia/acer bed. It's also the bird feeding station at the moment until our back garden is sorted after the build. Ha ha! The grass is too long but it's so wet we can't mow it.

Well, that's the lot for today. I know, there were rather a lot.

I hope everyone's had a good weekend, and better weather than we've had.

15 comments:

Lisa at Greenbow said...

Your flowers are all gorgeous and you do have a lot blooming. I would love to have some of this blooming in my garden now. My garden has slowed to a dull time with few blooms. I must work on that for next year.

BT said...

Thanks Lisa. It's so difficult, depending on where you are and the weather you have. I'm amazed so much has bloomed with all the rain we've had.

Arija said...

Love the over-abundance in your garden! Mine was like that before the salt and drought tok most of it.

Stampmaiden said...

What a wonderful way for me to end the weekend. A walk through a beautiful garden is such a treat for me especially when it's a garden that's been lovingly tended to. Thanks for inviting me into your peaceful world full of nature's color.
Linda

marianne said...

So nice to see our cards together!
What an abundance of flowers you still have!
It has been hot and dry here this summer and although we water it is a little bit over with the flowers . Maybe it needs some new plant which bloom later....... But I still enjoy the garden.
My big apple tree gives hundreds of apples which I can use for the deer.

Have a nice week!

KathyB. said...

Being partial to blue the delphiniums appeal to me very much. The Artist Trading Cards are very, very crafty and worth trading. I like the Christmas card and the cat ATC is very much like cards I have in an old family album that were to my mother from my father from Japan.

W.hat do you do with the cards you receive? Do you place them in an album or frame them?

Jason said...

Hello,

I like the grotto! Hope things are progressing. We need some rain! lol

Victoria plum jam and blackberry jelly on my toast this morning. Lovely. See you soon.

xx

Rachel Green said...

Fabulous1
You're quite right - I love them very much.

Carol said...

The flowers are just beautiful (as are your ATC's)

C x

Heather said...

Your garden is looking glorious in spite of the dire weather. I think perhaps you don't have slugs and snails in Ireland - you grow so many things I have given up on. I love the peppery scent of phlox - they remind me of my dear Gran's garden. I have just bought four ferns for the shady end of our garden.

The Weaver of Grass said...

I am astonished by the variety and beauty of those flowers Gina - and they show no evidence of very wet weather. Here in the Dales our garden is really quite past it - only the Japanese anemones are making any kind of show at all.
What do you think to my new photo?

Bea said...

How delightful to see your garden again and it's certainly blooming after all the rain you have had.
I meant to have you ask Jim if he's seen any blight on his tomatoes. We seem to be free of it here in the midwest but my friends on the East coast have complained of a tomato blight. Can't even throw them in the compost. :(
:)Bea

BT said...

Arija, I always feel guilty when I read your comments! At least you can enjoy our blooms.

Linda, thank you so much for your wonderful comment. Isn't the blog world wonderful?

Hello Marianne. That 'O' card is for you! Hot and dry! Hot and dry??? What's that? lol. It's always good to get plants that blooms at the times when most are over, or haven't started. We try to do that here. You feed your apples to the deer then? What a great idea.

Hi Kathy B, that dark blue delphinium is gorgeous, isn't it? I am in a group of 10 and we are working our way through the alphabet with ATCs. I have up to the letter 'M' so far, with 'O' being this week's letter. Do go and visit our blog. Click on the link on my profile page. There are some great little works of art there. A friend of mine bought me a hanging ATC holder which holds 30 ATCs so my alphabet is going into that. Some people put them in photo albums and others keep them in boxes and just take them out and look at them occasionally. It's all a matter of choice.

Hello Jason, can't wait to try the jam and jelly. Can we take some on holiday? The grotto is just wonderful, I just hope it survives the demolition of the barn, which is right next to it.

Hello Rachel, glad you enjoyed.

Thank you Carol.

Thanks Heather. Oh we have many many slugs, not quite as many snails in Ireland. I'm afraid I use pellets when plants are small, especially for the hostas and annuals or they wouldn't survive. Mostly we don't have to bother after that, unless we see a particular plant being attacked. I adore ferns and we have so many here, some of them wild and some we have planted. They love our conditions of course.

Hi Weaver. I am really pleased that the flowers have lasted so well. The cosmos are getting a bit battered now, they get so tall and they side shoots are brittle and snap off. Of course I don't photograph those!! The roses aren't too good now either. Some of them are sitting in water, so that can't help. Aquatic roses!! lol. I love your new profile picture, it's much nicer.

Hello Bea my across the pond friend. I'm so glad you enjoyed the photos. I asked Jim about tomato blight and he said the ones on the allotment all have it! When he sprayed the potatoes he forgot about the tomatoes. Silly man. We have some plants under the sweet peas and they are ok. The others were next to the potatoes!! We never seem to do very well here, not enough sunshine. In Worthing we had tons of them. I used to grow the small ones in hanging baskets, which looked lovely too.

Totalfeckineejit said...

Wow, there's plenty of colour down in Clare, BT, and the rain always brings it out!Most of our garden has died off at this stage, mainly by suicide or drowning.

aims said...

How I'd love to have a garden like you do. That would mean I would have to work in it though and my back just doesn't allow that sort of thing. It's beautiful tho Gina. Just beautiful.