Blowsy.

 We have had both sunshine and rain and it's great growing weather. The garden and the roadside verges around the village are blowsy with vegetation. Wind and rain came and knocked the grasses about under the fruit trees so we've had to cut back into the paths a little to avoid the grass soaking our legs.

Some bushes have had a haircut and plants that have finished flowering have been cut back. The iris were wonderful this year but now I've cut the stems and leaves so that the sun can get to the corms.

In a previous post Colette asked how I take rose cuttings. I have a patch of soil outside the fruit cage that I keep for cuttings of anything that I would like to propagate. I just stick lengths of stem into the ground and hope for the best. I don't always get round to labelling and rely on recognising the variety if it takes successfully. (Sometimes I'm left with a mystery!)

I also put cuttings in pots.

Either way it is hit and miss. The advantage of outside is that I don't need to water, I can forget about the stems until they come into leaf.

I have propagated this little Raubritter rose and given it away as a gift many times. It is a sweetbriar and seems to be equally happy tumbling over low walls or climbing up them. It flowers only once around midsummer but the flowers stay on the plant for weeks.

Cinderella climbing up the kitchen wall. This rose is happy enough in dry weather but an absolute flop if the rain gets to it.

Chapeau de Napoleon behaves well whatever the weather. It is a crested moss said to have been found in the wall of a Swiss convent in the early 1820's. I think the name probably comes from the curious shape of the emerging buds.

I think I rather maligned Honorine de Brabant, she is doing rather well this year. She came as a cutting from a friend.

The climbing Iceberg will flower all summer long!