Chasing my tail

It has been a particularly good year for hawthorn

and pink campion.

The foxcubs - there are three this year 

don't be fooled by this tender only-child scene -

have trampled happily over most of the emerging plants in the garden,

but the runner beans have a bamboo barricade 

which has survived their predations, 

I think.

I'd better go and check.

Yes. It's working.

And while I was out there I managed a little garbage collection.

The new game is scattering other people's refuse

all over the garden.

We have a handy new recycling system which separates out

the food waste into smaller bins for the foxes' better convenience.

Reality check

We've been enjoying some beautiful gardens.

This one at Scotney Castle

with its stunning display of acers, azaleas

and rhododendrons

and of course Sissinghurst too with

the white wisteria just opening.

I took note of a pairing of smoke bush

and alliums, underplanted with a pale pink persicaria 

and thought I could do something similar at home.

But the fox cubs had other ideas.

These are the ones I salvaged.

 I thought of Freda and her deer-munched tulips

and all the other people working against the clock, the climate and the critters

to get their gardens ready for public display this summer.

Faux Fair Isle Fail

I was very taken by the idea that I could use a wool

that would knit Fair Isle all by itself,

according to the lady in the shop.

I have attempted the real thing and it's time consuming, fiddly

and rather too warm with the double layer of loops at the back of the work.

I needed a quick project that would be off the needles before

grand-daughter went away on her holiday.

Planes can be chilly even though her destination isn't.

So I embarked on a hooded jumper with pom poms

excited to see how this would work.

Hmm. Nice stripes with the merest suggestion of alternate stitch colour change

but Fair Isle it ain't.

For the real thing you could do no better than to visit this clever person.

Luckily grand-daughter likes it a lot

and wore it with the hood up on quite a warm day

until we both agreed that she was getting a bit too hot.

Hold the front page

This Bank Holiday weekend delivered spring and early summer

all rolled into one glorious extravaganza.

The beach,

deserted and sandy for once, raked of its usual shingle layer.

Wisteria.

Rhododendrons.

Azaleas.

Other people's gardens,

open to the public under the National Garden Scheme.

Walks, with dodgy overgrown footpaths

and equally dodgy directions from an ancient guide book

but a bonus discovery

of an abandoned orchard, like a scene from The Secret Garden

with a mysterious gazebo in the middle of nowhere.

 Foliage colour to rival that of autumn

but with added zing and zest,

and finally, a rare treat, the handkerchief tree 

Davidia involucrata in flower

to wave us on our way home.