We went to Bournemouth at the weekend for a long overdue meet-up with family. How glorious! Last year when our daughter was home-working and her partner furloughed he set to work on their steeply sloping back garden. Confined to quarters as I was by the Covid rules I could only watch the progress via Facetime or photos so I was really looking forward to seeing the finished result.
This was the state of play last year!
Retaining walls and steps being constructed to create three different levels.
And this is how it was looking in the early morning at the weekend.
The weather was perfect. We spent all day outside.
The rhododendrons are in full bloom all over the town but only one bush remains from the many that had been crowding out Wee One's garden.
A few of the rhododendron flowers brought into the house together with a vase of roses from my garden.
June is the month when my garden is full of roses, many of them grown from cuttings that came from our former home. Others are cuttings from friends or bought because I couldn't resist them or their lovely names, such as Honorine de Brabant (even though she is rather spindly in my garden!) Here are some of the roses that I grow.
Gertrude Jekyll.
The Queen of Denmark.
Rosa Mundi.
Heritage.
Climbing Iceberg.
Paul's Himalayan Musk on the veg garden fence. It is such a strong rose and gives one great burst of flower each year before I cut it hard back. (Hard to imagine that such a vigorous rose came as a small cutting from my previous home.)
I fill the house with cut flowers so that we can enjoy the perfume. I don't know the name of this rose. It came as a sliver of stalk from Corfu many years ago. Perhaps someone can recognise it?
The petals soon fall, but they are wonderful while they last.