CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED
Once more, today was scorchingly hot. Apart from gentle tidying up, watering was the order of the day.
The hose in this garden view was trained on the Rose Garden, where
pink foxgloves, golden heucheras, and blue clematises romp among roses like the yellow Laura Ford, and deep red roseraie De L’Hay;
where pink Summer wine, and white Madame Alfred Cariere cover the blue wooden entrance arch;
where Summer’s sculpted image just manages to peep through For Your Eyes Only;
and where Jacqueline du Pré has been fortunate to find shade.
Giant poppies blaze in the first view above.
There are more alongside Canterbury bells and bronze fennel on the north side of the Back Drive,
where viper’s bugloss, given to us by Giles in order to cater for bees, burgeons before geranium palmatums;
and where the buxom rose Dearest can just about hold up her head.
Clematises and gladioli thrive in the row of deep plastic window boxes that divides the Back Drive from the garden proper.
Alongside this display stands the New Bed.
We have California poppies in the Cryptomeria Bed,
on the other side of which my favourite rhododendron is now blooming.
The last three days of sunshine have brought opulence to the garden.
This evening we dined on roast lamb, mashed swede and potato, carrots, cauliflower and runner beans, all cooked to perfection by the Culinary Queen, who finished the Bergerac blanc while I drank more of the cabernet sauvignon.