Garden - May to August

 

Note: I'm actually posting this so I can look back in the depths of Winter and early Spring and remember that despite the wind scorched earth, flowers will bloom again in the garden!

Gardening in Orkney is always a challenge, particularly if you are near the shore.  My garden regularly gets dowsed with sand and salt in the gales, particularly in Winter.  Even with a good high wall (about 5 ft in places) the direction of the wind makes a difference.  Sometimes the wind hits the wall and produces a whirlpool effect.  So over the years I have planted a few trees, some very hardy shrubs, and then lots of hardy perennials.  If the perennials do well they get split in Autumn/Spring and shared around the borders.  Some just cling on year on year without doing that well.

Late Spring - perennial cornflowers (Centauria), aquilegia, and "Batchelor's Buttons" against a backdrop of the old stone wall and old byres.

Lupins, chives, astrantia, and fennel

Geraniums and the bright yellow Welsh Poppies

Thalictrum by the copper sculpture

Sunlight through poppies

I love the deep maroon/red of this poppy. Poppies do tend to flop about  but they are just glorious and I let them get on with it.  

This hebe can flower all year round if there is a mild winter.  But it is in its glory in summer.  The bees and butterflies love it and it's constantly buzzing! This time graced by a red admiral

More aquilegia and Welsh poppies....

The ladies mantle can be a bit of a thug and spreads prolifically, but I'm thankful for it as it's great as ground cover!  I hack it back periodically during the summer to give other things a chance, but it also helps support and protect some of the other plants so it earns its place.

Weigela and rose on the left, Rowan tree on the right, beneath various perennials including geraniums, ladies mantle, and Dame's Rocket (I think?)

In previous years I have had help with the garden but the neighbour who helped has moved away now.  Thankfully after a patch of despair in Spring (well watered haha!) Everything put on a growth spurt and joined up in clumps thereby leaving less room for "weeds".  I do let patches of nettles grow (good for egg laying for moths and butterflies), along with woundwort (bees love it), self-heal, some buttercups, daisies etc.  I try and keep on top of dockans and pull up random weeds like sow-thistle etc.  I also have some hogweed which has to be cut back regularly (I'm unable to dig it up). I would describe my garden style as "feral".  It works for me!

Knautia - I have several in this bed and love them.

Love this tall hardy geranium.  It's as if an artist has taken a paint brush to the flowers.

Inula - it manages to grow fairly tall as long as it evades any summer high winds!

Water hen sparingly.....

This border is pretty feral - this is a very selective shot. Ha!  But it's still doing OK and full of insects.

Daisies, Mallow, Geraniums all growing happily together...

Mallow, together with some wild poppies.  I had sown some wild flowers here years ago and the poppies er - pop up each year...

Late summer now and the sedums are in flower....

Daisies with -er - can't remember.  Spikey flowers....

One of my favourites - sea holly.....

And a pom pom flower! Er can't remember its name either....

Crocosmia lucifer....

Loosestrife and a thug of an ornamental grass but I love it!

Commonly known as red hot pokers!

I did grow vegetables for a while, but to be honest my heart wasn't in it!  So now I just stick to fruit bushes - the gooseberries did well this year, as did the black-currants.  Of course, plenty of rhubarb available too.  I've not had much success with raspberries so have dug those up in favour of blackcurrant bushes. Despite a drought through much of July and August they have fruited well and I have a freezer half full with fruit, made some jam, and gave some away!

First crop....

And the borders - most of the garden is laid to grass as it's easy for me to zip about on my ride-on mower!  So the borders can be somewhat distant.  But Button, the hens and I walk around them daily and take great pleasure (well I do!) from them!  It's my own "secret garden".

Silage being cut in the fields up the hill

Looking from the top of the garden to the bottom and beyond!

Hope you enjoyed your wander around the garden.....

Wait - where did August go?

 

Hadn't realised it was a while since I posted! Partly due to computer problems making accessing photos troublesome and partly - well.... I'm retired, so time is more fluid these days...... Anyway here are some photos from around Graemsay this month.  Above Sandside Bay, with Sandside (home) and Hoy High.  Across the water are the Orphir hills.

A panorama looking North across Graemsay, across the water the darker hills are Stromness, under a cloud.

Looking up West hill towards the old school, and the School House (on the left) and on the brow of the hill is Cott of School.  Some of the fields have been cut for silage.  However due to almost drought conditions in Orkney, the harvest is very poor this year.  Yield for silage is estimated to be about 30% down.  This probably will mean many farmers in Orkney will send more stock to market before Winter as they won't have enough feed.

Looking across to the croft of Dean, and the Hoy Hills beyond.

Looking back Northwards now (sorry you will get dizzy with swivelling your head about!), over yet another ruined croft to the farm of Fillets, on the hill.

A more distant view...

Further along the school road.  Sheep in the fields by Burra Sound, and Hoy Hills across the water

Across on Hoy is the remains of a WWII gun emplacement.  This guarded the mouth of Scapa Flow together with the gun emplacement on Graemsay and Ness Battery outside Stromness

The Hoy hills......

And back to Sandside bay

Evening light on my land at Sandside, looking over to just outside Stromness

And here again, this time looking towards Orphir.  In the evening I look out on this field and see Hen Harriers and a short-eared owl hunting among the grass.  Probably for mice as no voles on Graemsay.

Out and about.....

 

These are a few random pix taken over the last month when I've been out and about.  Above is the training ship "Pelican of London".  A beautiful international sailing ship.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures of her in sail, though I did see her in the distance in sail as she headed for the Pentland Firth and she looked magnificent.  

In the centre of Stromness is a former drinking trough for horses.  Nowadays it is filled with flowers in the summer and looks very pretty.  The building on the left is the RNLI office as the Stromness Lifeboat is moored in the harbour just round the corner.  It has a small shop here too to raise funds for the local lifeboat station.  Behind the "fountain" you can see the Graemsay ferry and beyond that the walkway that takes passengers up to the Northlink Ferry, Hamnavoe. That is the ferry that takes folk over to Scrabster on the Scottish Mainland.

I love the feed on this fountain....

On this particular trip to Stromness the ferry had to make an unscheduled stop to pick up a creel used to catch crabs/lobster.  It had erroneously been dropped into the shipping lane and was a hazard.  Probably also a useful impromptu "man overboard" exercise!

These next 3 photos are out in Birsay, on the West Mainland of Orkney.  It was a beautiful day, though I only stopped briefly to take pictures as I was meeting up with friends.

On another day I headed over to South Ronaldsay and environs.  Calling in on another friend and have a catch up in the garden with her adorable young cats.  Only 3 in this photo but she has 5 she adopted 6 months ago.....

There was a yacht regatta in a village on the way. Lovel to see the boats out.  Um yes I know they are in the distance.  We were on a wander nearby and happened to spot them across a loch. 

I love the smell of meadowsweet.

In the above photo wild Angelica just bursting forth below the meadowsweet.  Below delicate thistles.

And a young calf came over for a chat!

Hope you enjoyed your wander!  Weather is due to be changeable again over the next couple of weeks but I'm hopeful of some more out and about photos..... fingers crossed....