Flowers and Rain and Wee Ghosties

 We had some proper chunky rain last night which was very welcome, especially as I spent a very humid and sweaty two hours yesterday digging through some rock hard clay soil in order to plant up the dog rose hedge. Here it is this morning, looking very damp and happy…

Within five minutes of me arriving on the front drive armed with rose bushes, rooting powder, spade, secateurs and elbow grease, the neighbour appeared. This I could have done without. I decided to carry on digging whilst he carried on talking. 

‘Not lavender, then?’ said he.

‘No,’ said I. ‘Dog roses.’

‘That ground looks hard,’ said he.

‘It is,’ said I. ‘But I want to get them in now because we are forecast a heavy chunk of rain tonight.’

The neighbour eyed the bushes. ‘You’ll have to keep them pruned at that height,’ he said, somewhat audaciously, I thought. ‘Or they’ll get out of hand.’

I thought, I’ll keep them pruned to whatever height I want given they are planted on MY side of the boundary and this ‘get-rid-of-the-leylandii-hedge’ malarkey that YOU requested has cost ME more than £500 to accommodate. I just nodded and smiled. ‘It’ll make a nice hedge,’ said I. ‘I’ll prune it when I do Wild Edric,’ and I waved my rooting powder scoop (two doses per plant) at the Wild Edric rose hedge which is still bravely putting on flowers. And vicious thorns. 

Anyway, the hedge swap is done now, and I shall look forward to the proliferation of flowers and rose hips next year. 

The candle I am currently burning in ‘Darling Buds’ is from a local independent company called ‘The Cosy Witch’.This particular one - ‘The Haunted Library’ - revealed a surprise as it reached the bottom of the tin…

Two little floating ghosties! How cute is that? When the candle is finished I shall put the ghosts on my pin board. It’s little details like this that I love about independent companies and why I keep going back to them rather than the faceless ‘big brands.’

The sunflowers are popping out now and being very much enjoyed by the bees. I shall keep the seed heads to dry out for the birds.

The garden seems to be racing ahead of itself this year. This hot weather, I suppose, has brought the harvest time forwards although everything does seem more perky this morning, thanks to the chunky rain. Still, it gives me time to do some clearing up before I think about putting stuff in for late Autumn. I’m thinking I shall grow some garlic which I’ve never done before. I have also saved some lavender seeds and will sow those next month. Apparently, growing lavender from seed doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get replicas of the parent plant, but that’s okay. I’m up for baby lavender surprises. 

The lavender I harvested has dried already and been turned into these…

…lots of little heady scented pouches to pop into clothes drawers. I shall attach ribbons to some to hang on clothes rails and dangle around the house to be air fresheners. Working on them proved very soporific, but in a nice relaxing kind of way. I could hang one in the car as an air freshener but I’m not sure it would be a good idea because of the inducement of drowsiness. 

Finally, a bottom-shaped plum. Just for giggles…