Currently the Dame's Rocket, geraniums and verbascum are growing taller than the weigelia, but it's time will come!
Still, I have to remind myself that the garden has come a long way since this...... (please note the sheep is *sleeping*, not dead! No animals were harmed in the making of this garden!!). The borders were only planted up in Summer 2009, so it will take a while for the trees and shrubs to get established.
Button enjoys accompanying me to inspect the flowers daily. Here she is doing the usual cat thing of dealing with vertical slopes without any hesitation....
Mostly though she enjoys a little sun worship!
And of course the new bench is an ideal vantage point to watch birdies and butterflies......
St Magnus Festival footnote : If you read my recent posts, last Saturday I went to a rather odd performance as part of the MagFest, the fringe theatre element of the festival. I've just read a review of the performance when it was performed at the Barbican in London in 2010 - thank goodness it wasn't just me then that didn't "get it"! Don't get me wrong, I *love* "alternative" theatre performances. When I lived in London I frequented mostly fringe theatre rather than the big "shows". A performance which had a huge impact on me was Samuel Beckett's "Not I", and "Waiting for Godot" is my all time favourite. But THIS performance was just bizarre with nothing to recommend it. And most of the audience I heard talking about it felt the same, and it isn't that Orkney audiences are "unsophisticated"! I'm probably more disappointed that I saw something that didn't work well for me, when there were so many other wonderful things I didn't see. Sign.....
Wow, Sian, your garden's looking great. What a difference in it since I saw it in person. :-) I particularly love the first picture - to me that's just how a flower border should look.
ReplyDeleteHi Fiona, yes the first picture is my favourite. I'm hoping this will translate to the other two borders soon too. That wild "cottage garden" natural feel is what I was aiming at and it seems to have worked so far :-) Lots of perennials that self seed so I do less work ;-)
ReplyDeleteHey there I'm very jealous of your flowers - all I've got here is wind battered willow!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! We did a bit of festival - but not too much - cellist was a precussionist for the night in a windband concert - go that for complicated!
Great fun though!
BTW Prim scot second flowering the now is AMAZING! Don't know if you've been yet but worth a go!
All looking wonderful, dare I say it?: even the weather!? It is high time I made a visit to Orkney, one of those things too easily pushed onto the back-burner, I'm afraid. Cats are amazing at times, ain't they? We're about to move down to Andalucia tomorrow and I'd swear Charlie, my much-loved mog, has got wind of the impending disruption.
ReplyDeleteI am jealous - so pretty- your flowers are way ahead of mine. I'm told by locals this is 'The moor effect' that holds back everything in my garden.I think it might be the large oak trees that overshadow it for most of the day. What is /are Dame's rocket?
ReplyDeleteOrkneyFlowers - that's the benefit of a 5ft dry stane dyke! Great that the Cellist was in the festival, though um.... not playing the usual instrument.....
ReplyDeleteIain - Andalucia, oooh that sounds wonderful (and warm!)
Thecurateswife - think the proper name for Dame's Rocket is "hesperis matronalis" or something similar? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperis_matronalis
Oh how lovely, Sian. I'm green with envy. I can't plant much here in Normandy as when we're not here we let our farmer neighbour graze her livestock on our patch to keep the grass down and they always seem to prefer what I've planted. Sigh....
ReplyDeletePerpetua - well you can vicariously share my flowers then :-) I had to wait years for them as it took me a while to get around to having the garden sorted. I did like having it used as a lambing pen by my neighbour, but I missed "guddling with the earth" and am glad I'm back to doing that now.
ReplyDeleteJust like heaven................
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