Its nearly time for the Chelsea Flower Show and most years there are irises in the show gardens. With the cool weather that we have had recently, here and in the UK, I imagine that the growers have had an easier time keeping the flowers back for the show. Ours have been flowering for a few weeks now as we have several varieties that give a display for up to about six weeks. We're really lucky as most of them were already here when we bought Chenevaux, they were just either hidden or overgrown, so i've been dividing them and moving them around ever since and now they are everywhere! This year we've noticed a couple of what look like new varieties - we're not entirely sure though!
The wisteria in the photo below is called "Lipstick" - I couldn't resist buying it with a name like that! Planted about 4 yeas ago now it covers the whole of the wall along the side of the old bakery ( also called the Cafe du Coin ), and this year the flowers have been amazing. Not really a lipstick colour though!
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| Wisteria "Lipstick" |
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| The faded underwear look |
This iris is one of the very few that we have bought. Every year on August 15th there is a festival day in our village of St Pierre de Maille - cycling races, parades, the brass band playing and a brocante/vide grenier along all of the village streets. Vide grenier literally means to empty your attic and some of the things that are put out for sale look as though they have been in an attic for far too long! Still, one man's rubbish is another's treasure! There is a huge hustle and bustle first thing in the morning when everybody is setting up their stalls and lots of money changes hands, after battering down the prices of course! We had a stall a couple of years ago and people were picking things out of the boxes as Mark was carrying them to our stall! My objective is to sell as much as possible so that it doesn't come home again and spend another year in a shed. So when it gets a bit quiet maybe an impromtu fashion show might take place, or I will send Mark off with a box of bits to try and tempt one of the customers trying to enjoy a quiet coffee at Gorries! Last time he sold a video to a chap who didn't have a video recorder! ( The wife brought it back !! ) Anyway - back to the iris - which I bought from a lady who always has boxes of them, it had a nice sounding name ( lost ) but I was a bit disappointed when it first flowered as the general effect looked a bit murky - the faded underwear look - however this year it seems more attractive somehow.
We've been having a bit of a mare with deer in the grounds recently, there's a family living nearby, probably in one of our copses and we've been finding lots of nibbled and rubbed branches, rather oddly they seem to have taken a liking to conifers for some reason. Lots of the young trees and shrubs are protected with chicken wire but we've had to use every last piece to try and protect everything. We've also got a resident hare, rabbits, and some pheasants. One of the males is very vocal and has adopted our garden as his territory - we know its the same one as it has several of its tail feathers missing - we call him "broken tail"! After the recent rain our pond has actually got some water in it and the frogs have been taking advantage - the noise is tremendous!! In previous years the tadpoles haven't survived as the pond has dried out too soon and although we don't want bad weather the occasional shower to keep it wet would be good.
As well as the irises we have a bumper selection of nettles so weeding is the activity of the week, as well as getting the veg patch in order. The toms are ready to plant out and everything is suddenly growing faster than we can keep up with. Friends of ours who are far more organised came over last week and looked in horror at our potager " oh Caroline you've got a bit of work to do there,( ho ho,) we're already eating our own salads " etc, wish I was so diligent but gardening in the rain isn't my idea of fun especially when we've been up too late watching Britain's Got Talent! How cute is that dog?
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| This may be a new one |
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| Really fresh with blue veining in the white |
Well lets see what horticultural innovations Chelsea brings, and then there's Wimbledon on the horizon and Mark's golf day on 13th June Yaay we love summer.
We've been having a bit of a mare with deer in the grounds recently, there's a family living nearby, probably in one of our copses and we've been finding lots of nibbled and rubbed branches, rather oddly they seem to have taken a liking to conifers for some reason. Lots of the young trees and shrubs are protected with chicken wire but we've had to use every last piece to try and protect everything. We've also got a resident hare, rabbits, and some pheasants. One of the males is very vocal and has adopted our garden as his territory - we know its the same one as it has several of its tail feathers missing - we call him "broken tail"! After the recent rain our pond has actually got some water in it and the frogs have been taking advantage - the noise is tremendous!! In previous years the tadpoles haven't survived as the pond has dried out too soon and although we don't want bad weather the occasional shower to keep it wet would be good.
As well as the irises we have a bumper selection of nettles so weeding is the activity of the week, as well as getting the veg patch in order. The toms are ready to plant out and everything is suddenly growing faster than we can keep up with. Friends of ours who are far more organised came over last week and looked in horror at our potager " oh Caroline you've got a bit of work to do there,( ho ho,) we're already eating our own salads " etc, wish I was so diligent but gardening in the rain isn't my idea of fun especially when we've been up too late watching Britain's Got Talent! How cute is that dog?
