Birthday Present!

Our Pentax Optio (about 6 years old) has been giving us trouble - or rather, not giving us pictures.  The shutter fires once for every 20 times it's pressed. So yesterday I was given a new Canon A720. Haven't had time to do anything with it yet, and it's blowing and about to rain outdoors, not optimal photographing-the-flowers weather. But my other present was a new garden journal (my last was filled up) so it's time to take stock of the garden, and start trying to remember what things are so I can record their locations. With lovely photos for the facing pages. But it's not fit to be out, and the rest of the day looks to be worse.

Maybe I'll have to stay in and sharpen knives.

Garden News

I planted tomatoes yesterday after dinner - in the rain. I hope that's optimal growing conditions and that they will flourish.

I hope someone sees my flower bed today and thinks I'm a brilliant gardener for matching the foxgloves with the sweet rocket, though if it's a gardener he or she will suspect that the sweet rocket is a volunteer from another bed and just blew in to the one with the foxgloves, The peonies are about to burst, so I hope the rain today doesn't knock them down.  The rain makes for great colours, however.

Summer's here

I've been busy! Some knitting, a bit of dancing, and now that the weather has cleared up, a bit of gardening too. Yesterday I did some deadheading on the lilac hedge (a monumental task, as they are now 'way over my head) and some planting of annuals. Taking away, giving.  

Roses are starting to come out - nothing of particular note, just Blanc de Coubert, Philemon Cochet, and the rugosas - including Hansa. I have planted a few new ones this year, but not on the rose mound - in the flower beds and along the edge of the lawn by the road.  I did buy a new Explorer - a red climber called Henry Kelsey. Robert Osborne (of Cornhill Nursery) speaks highly of Henry in his book. I planted him behind the rose trellis (with Dublin Bay in front), so I hope that 1. Both survive, bloom, and confound onlookers with two sorts of red blooms, apparently from one plant; or 2. One or the other survives and fills in the trellis. My money's on Henry. While I was planting Henry I managed to break a bloom off an iris, which I brought in and put in water. I wanted to see what colour it was because I bought it at a church yard sale last year and had never seen the bloom. It's warped because the slugs had got at it. Next year I'll keep an eye on it. 

In knitting I'm scundered with socks (toe up is doing my head in!) so I'm looking for other options, including fingerless gloves, entrelac and a lace shawl project that requires more concentration than I have, apparently. I've had to start it again.