My English Garden in June – Roses

 

June is the month for roses and I’m pleased to say that the roses in my garden are doing well. I did have a plague of green fly descend upon the bushes, but a little spray took care of that. I use a washing up detergent diluted in water to remove the little blighters. There weren’t many ladybirds around so I thought I’d better deal with it myself. The rose bush above is in its third year and is doing very well. There are more flowers on it this year and the blooms are larger.

New to the garden is the red climber in the next picture. It’s doing well. I won’t prune it this Autumn. I’ll let it do its thing. I did buy two, but sadly the other one has died. I planted that one out the front on a north facing wall so that may have something to do with it.

Roses are quite easy plants to grow and they seem to thrive in most conditions. I find it fascinating how each bush is different and some do better one year than another.

Here are the others.

 

Oma

It’s never too hot to knit or crochet!

Well, maybe it’s a little warm…? just a tad? Anyway, a knitter has to knit and a crocheter has to crochet and a spinner has to spin and a scrapbooker has to… you get the message. I do all of that so I’m always busy. Plus I love to cook and sew and read. I just worry that I won’t have enough time left on this earth to finish all the things I want to do. Anyone else feel like that?

Recently I became a grandma (Oma) again, to little Sam. Here is his picture again. I didn’t think you’d mind seeing it again while I wait for some new ones! As I look into his dear little face, I realise that I won’t be here for all of his growing up. I may make it till he’s 20 or so, if I’m lucky. That’s a sobering thought and while I’m on the subject, I won’t get to see the new King or Queen, to be born today, get on the throne either. All of which is why I must make the most of every minute of every day. That does’nt mean running around like a (fill in your own simile here), but it does mean getting into perspective those things which really don’t matter all that much. I must treasure every day and each visit from my beloved sons and their families because none of us knows how many more days we have. When we are young, we don’t think about those things too much, but as we get older, they fill our thoughts more.

So let me sit back and crochet my blanket, ready for the cold, winter winds…

Let me enjoy my roses in this delightful cottage garden.

But most of all, let me give thanks for my family and friends, near and far and that means YOU!

ps: Everything went very well this week, with the arrival of my husband in England. I know you are looking forward to hearing how he is getting on, but my feet haven’t touched the floor with so much to do and arrange, so  I will come back to that in a future post. Suffice to say that he says ‘It’s like being three years old again!  Everything here is different!’

Oma

Beautiful Roses – High Summer

England is enjoying some spectacular weather at the moment! Yes, I did say that. Unusual, I know, but we have had hot, sunny days for a while now and more to come. Is it a coincidence, I wonder; that my husband is arriving from Tennessee next week? Is he bringing his weather with him? I rather doubt it because where he has been staying for a few weeks in South Carolina, there has been thunderstorms and heavy rain every day.  Perhaps he’ll bring those too.

I have been preparing the cottage for his arrival. There are lots of differences to life over here. I wonder how he will cope? What will he notice first? Our lack of air conditioning perhaps? The birds are different here. They look different and they sound different. There are no mocking birds, humming birds or cardinals. Instead we have blackbirds, who sing so very beautifully, wood pigeons, little English robins and tiny wrens. I’m just thinking of my own garden now. With two cats, the birds like to keep away. We have no cicadas or poisonous snakes and our butterflies are smaller. There are no fireflies either.

From my own observations I can say that the trees are different. Ours are not so tall and they are more gnarled looking. We have miles of hedges.  Did you know you can tell the age of a hedge by the number of species of plant and tree in it?

We drive on the left hand side and there are many, many roundabouts. We are allowed to park cars on the side of the road so driving becomes a bit like an obstacle course.

We have double-decker buses. Ours are painted turquoise. We use public transport a lot because our petrol is very expensive. Because I am over 60 I travel free on the local buses, whether they are in my own town or someone elses.

I don’t pay for my prescriptions because I am over 60 years old. Our National Health Service is free at the point of use.

Time for another picture:

I am more than excited about L’s arrival and have been ‘nesting’ for a few weeks now. Only a few more days now…

Fading – Remembering – Love – Old Age – Preparation – Getting Older

REMEMBER 

by Christina Rosetti 1830 – 94

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember; do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

+++

I shall be 61 years old soon, so I have made it through my 60th year, which has been very difficult for me. The difficulty comes when you don’t feel 60, not in your mind anyway, but the mirror and a chance glance in a shop window, remind you that you no longer look like you thought you looked. I have talked about the physical signs of aging before and will do again, but it’s harder to quantify the emotional mind when it ages.

People change as they get older. Dare I say that I am not the person I was at 14? or 21?, 30?, 40? or 50? I would like to think that I have improved but the truth is that I have just changed. I don’t think I am any better than I was way back then.  Perhaps I am more forgiving? Yes, that is true. I am more forgiving, less judgmental but on the down side, I am more set in my ways. I resist change in my life more than before. I find I don’t yearn to learn new things quite as much as I did even five years ago. It is hard to keep up with new technology. It doesn’t seem to work like it’s supposed to so every day brings a new challenge.  Something has gone wrong with A, B or C and it is up to me or my partner to fix it.

Computers and telephones play a much larger part in our lives than they used to. I have resisted getting a Smartphone thus far; saying to myself that I don’t need one; it is too complicated; I might lose it; I can’t afford the monthly payments now that I am on a restricted budget. Those are the kind of excuses I use for myself. I don’t need one, it is true. I do just fine with the two pay-as-you-go phones I have – one for England and one for America.

Computers are a different matter.  So many forms need to be filled in online these days that no-one can really function properly without one. Then there is the fun side of computers. There is still a lot of fun in surfing the Internet and I enjoy that as much as anyone.  However, my computer in England, which is only two years old, is running very slow.  I have no idea why and no intention of buying software to sort out the problem. I know if I do that, more problems will occur. When I get back I intend to try and speed it up a bit. I may need to buy more memory but should I have to? after only two years use? I’ll let you know.

As I enter my 61st year next week, I find myself spending more and more time remembering……

Shopping in the village.

In the pink with my Grandson Dylan.

Before I start this post, I just want to say thank you to all the people who are following my Blog.  I hope you are enjoying it and will continue to visit me in the future.

After our long awaited week of sunshine, flowers started appearing all over the garden. The roses seemed to like the sun and turned their faces to their almost forgotten friend.

This rose, Apricot Abundance, has at last come into its own, although on the second flush it’s more pink than apricot.

Dylan took his turn at watering the flowers and was most enthusiastic about it.  Notice in the background that the geraniums are flowering at last!

Dylan was most particular about filling the jug to the top to water the borders.  It must have been quite heavy for him.

The next picture shows Dylan standing next to his very own runner bean plant (in the tub). He planted the seeds himself and is watering them regularly. With the arrival of the sunshine, he now has lots of flowers, which will make lots of beans.  We await the first bean with anticipation.

I haven’t been so lucky with my Sweet Peas, which are in the smaller tub. They have been a disaster so far. I’ve had one measly flower and nothing since. Oh dear.

and to finish, here is a short video of Dylan with his jug. Hope you enjoy. I can’t help chuckling when I watch it because towards the end he takes the very big green watering can, empty otherwise he wouldn’t be able to lift it and takes both it and the jug to the borders. It’s so funny. See what you think.

Happy Gardening People.

Oma

In the garden – July 22nd 2012

I had to reach up really high to grab this beautiful climbing rose so I could take a picture of him. Holding him steady with one hand and taking a picture with the other is not easy, believe me but I am quite pleased with the result.  He is a little bit ragged round the edges owing to the rain this week, but overall he is surviving nicely and showing off his pretty colours, don’t you agree?

Don’t you just love the contrast in the colours below? The white of the feverfew with the blood red of the Sweet Williams is just gorgeous.

The potatoes are doing ok but the true test will be when I dig them up! I hope they are not rotten in the ground.  We have had the worst summer ever in England this year and that’s not just my opinion! Apparently we are importing a lot of vegetables from abroad now because we have just had too much rain.

The runner beans (on the left) have at last got some flowers – now we need lots of pollinating insects to get them going so they set. In the front are some tomatoes – not many flowers yet!!!

The runner beans look healthy enough and most years it is hard to get enough water to their roots, but this year I don’t think I’ve had to water them at all. I can’t believe we were in a drought situation at the start of April! We even had a hosepipe ban!

These Sweet Williams are that cerise colour which looks so good in a fashion show.

…and doesn’t the yellow contrast so well with the silvery green of the dogwood?

In the next picture we’ve got purple and white. White lifts every other colour and what would have been a dark corner is now ablaze. Even some liatris has got in with the feverfew.

Sunday is Gardening Day – July 15th 2012

During last week we have had far too much rain in the cottage garden. The climbing roses have been doing their best to hang on, but today I cut them back. With luck and if the weather is kind, we may see another flush in August.

The geraniums (pelargoniums) have also taken a battering but now, at last, I see some flowers.

The vegetables have suffered even more. The next picture shows the runner beans this time last year. Notice there are lots of flowers!

Now compare this year’s photograph… too much rain, not enough flying insects to pollinate the flowers.  Flowers? What flowers. We are still waiting.

Geraniums

Ivy on the balcony.

Feverfew is abundant just now.  It has a lovely, musty smell.

The daisies are hardy and seem to take whatever comes.  This year because of the wet conditions, they have grown very leggy.

Have a great week fellow bloggers.

Roses – How did my rose bushes do?

Last year I bought four new rose bushes. I thought you might like to see how they did in their first year.  I bought the roses in a sale at the end of the summer and kept the tags. I knew I would forget what they were called otherwise!

The first one is the Scorpio Rose. It is a real scarlet rose, very romantic. The bush was healthy and survived our cold, wet winter very well.

You can see it in the next picture, but don’t take notice of the colour of it. I used my smallest camera and red always comes out orangey red when I use it to photograph. As you can see there are plenty of blooms to such a small bush.

You can see the true colour of the Scorpio rose much better in the next picture, which I took with a better camera.

Now for the next one, which is called  My Mum. The picture shows a multi-layered rose with two colours:

This is what it looks like this week. The bush is tiny and needed quite a bit of nurturing, but given we had a very poor early summer, I’ll forgive it because the rose itself is beautiful. It’s quite small but very pretty. This is one of three roses on the bush.

They are all different and they all hang down as if they are ashamed and don’t want to show their pretty faces.

The next picture shows the darker one in more detail:

The next rose bush is called Golden Memories and it has been a surprise. It has grown fast and has lots of roses on it but …

…they shatter very quickly. It could be all the rain we’ve had. I’m not sure. Certainly is prolific though.

The last of the four bushes is called Apricot Abundance and it definitely doesn’t like the rain.

The roses are still in bud (see top of picture).  They haven’t even come out yet. When they do I shall be there with the camera.

I hope you enjoyed sharing the development with me today. I’m always curious to see if the plants and seeds I buy turn out like they are supposed to, as on the packet. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

I’ll leave you with the best one, which this year is the Scorpio Rose.

Roses galore!

Sunday is gardening day and today was a good day to wander among the roses. This yellow climbing rose has waited patiently throughout the rainy weather at the start of the month and is now in full bloom.

Come, walk around the garden with me on this lovely July day 🙂

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