Foreign Climes

Hi, I'm back from my holidays, did you miss me! I've been enjoying two whole weeks of complete rest and relaxation in the Maldives. Nothing more strenuous to do than a bit of snorkelling with the odd afternoon massage thrown in! I've still got plenty to share with you though, so take a look over the next couple of days for more posts, when I've caught up with the washing, back to reality again!

"There are no foreign lands. It is only the traveller who is foreign"
Robert Louis Stevenson

For The Benefit Of Bees

The summer nectar bar at Norton Conyers is well and truly open now, we have so many bees in the garden that they are for or five deep on every flower. At least they are on the blooms that take their fancy and it is interesting to note which flowers those are, they are not always the biggest and most colourful. Top of the pops at the moment are the eryingiums / sea hollies, but the sunflowers, veronicastrums and salvias are close runners up. Many of the dahlias fail to impress with their intricate tightly packed petals. So the easy guide to which flowers to grow for the benefit of bees is to choose the simple ones, you can't go wrong with a daisy!

"How doth the little busy bee improve each shinning hour, and gather honey all the day from every opening flower"
Isaac Watts

This little chap has so much pollen on him he is almost entirely yellow!

Cutting The Meadow

Nicky starts the cut

Just before the recent spell of hot weather was forecast to break we decided it was time to cut the meadow yesterday, a real case of making hay while the sun shines! Luckily for us the morning at least was cool as after the first initial cut there was plenty of raking to do. Giles had a brain wave and suggested using the leaf blower to help make piles of the hay which worked really well, and so our day was spent covered in grass seed helping the occasional stranded small creature to the safety of the meadow edges, mostly toads which don't crawl very fast! Ours is not the best meadow in the world consisting mainly of coarse grass and nettles but it is still a fantastic habitat for all sorts of insects, small mammals and wild flowers. Along the edge of the haha in particular we came across a lovely patch of ladies bedstraw Galium verum, smothered in bees with a sent of hay and honey which it retains when dried which was why it was used to stuff the pillows and mattresses of women in childbirth, very apt considering Kate's good news yesterday. It also has a high acid content and was traditionally used to curdle milk for cheese making being one of the key ingredients in making Double Gloucester.

"Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the many loads of hay

Ladies bedstraw

Visitors

Giles and I gave a guided tour of the garden yesterday to a lovely group of people who support the conservation of the local Thornthwaite henges. It was with a sense of pride that I found I could talk naturally and with a degree of knowledge about the history of the garden and the plants within it, after a little initial nervousness! No garden is complete without an audience, it makes all the hard work worthwhile. Lady Halena gave a talk in the orangery about the history of Sir James' family which I'm sure whet many an appetite for the re-opening of the house currently scheduled for 2014.
After lunch Giles left early, leaving me to enjoy the garden in solitude whilst I watered as many plants as possible before home time, a rare treat.

"In summer the song sings itself"
William Carlos Williams

Melting #2

Another day much like Saturday as we continue to suffer in the sultry summer heat. We are not the only ones however as some of the garden plants are now showing signs of stress, we have resorted to carrying cans of water to the worst of them especially the helaniums who were looking seriously wilted. With no rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future we may have a problem on our hands, the weather is such a  challenge this year! Luckily for us someone took pity on our plight today, the lady from Coachman's cottage brought us all an ice-cream mid-afternoon in return for all the fruit that finds its way to them, a much needed refresher. She told us that it is too hot for her horses as well and that at the moment they are only letting them graze the paddock in the evening cool, not a bad idea for gardening either if this Mediterranean climate continues.

"My advice to you is not to enquire why or whither, but to enjoy the ice cream while it's on your plate"
Thornton Wilder

Melting

Just Giles and I at work in the garden today and by this afternoon we were quietly melting in the heat. We settled down to watering the far vegetable patch and the new raspberry canes, as that seemed the least strenuous of all the jobs to do. It entailed stretching the big hosepipe as far as it would reach and trying to make the best of the poor pressure due to the distance. All was fine until the water petered out to a trickle, apparently we had run the well dry! So we switched to picking currants for the last hour or so filling another twenty punnets before home time. When Dave came sauntering up the path to collect me he was carrying two ice cold soft drinks for us, we couldn't express our gratitude enough.
My pictures are not doing justice to the garden at the moment as the lens keeps steaming up when in my pocket!

"If it could only be like this always, always summer, the fruit always ripe"
Evelyn Waugh

Hot Hot Hot

The walled garden of Norton Conyers continues to bake in the hot July sunshine, so today's post will be brief with just a few pictures to let the beauty of the garden speak for itself. Even Shandy was quiet for most of the day having dug up and devoured the rabbit she caught on Saturday, nice and ripe yum! We gardeners baked along with all of the flowers although we didn't get a refreshing shower with the hosepipe, cruelty to staff that!

"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart"
Celia Thaxter