Jonquils and roses...and a little bit of Bali.

You have to love it when you see this and it's not even the first of June.
 These were the only ones out in flower this afternoon and  I was compelled to scramble down on my hands and knees to smell them. 
I have a feeling that these may have been left in the ground when I dug up a huge clump and separated them. Mmmm...... 

....and seeing these beautiful green shoots bursting through fills me with anticipation for what is to come.

 I am trying to incorporate more grey foliage in our garden. 
There are two clumps of this tough little ground cover plant near our front entrance which faces North. Grey leafed plants are often drought tolerant and this is a little trooper. It has a mauve flower in Summer and a dense mat of soft grey scalloped leaves. It is quite old fashioned I think but I love it's toughness and greyness. I am going to try propagating it.
It is called Marrubium supinum scallop shell. I bought it from Lambley nursery ( but please just come and take some if you want to.....same with everything else).

These two roses are still blooming out there in the cold. 
The pink one is a climbing Pierre De Ronsard and the other is Abraham Darby...two stunning roses that I adore.

 Gorgeous cousins....Benny is up the tree.
Sam and his groomsmen looked so handsome on the day of the wedding.

Oh dear...I think Gareth must be chasing Indi....

Just wanted to sneak this one in again....little Bali boys.

Bill took this photo of us before we started melting!

Can't believe how hot it was........I think Winter may have just arrived here now. We have so many wood piles, we won't know where to start!!!

Winter garden, wintersweet and persimmons

Whilst looking through some garden photos, I came across these gorgeous blooms. They were picked in late May......24th to be exact ...just a couple of days ago.

 But that was 2012.

 Amazing really. I remember picking them by the bucketful and giving them to anyone who happened to be passing by.

The grass out there is just as green, but no bucketfuls this year( is there such a word as bucketfuls???).
 The rose garden has been mowed for the first time since the fire. 
Bill picked up his new mower on Monday and it has been given it's first tryout.
The grass looks a treat.

Happy boys today.....our temporary fence is still upright and has kept those little boys enclosed.
 The draftsman is coming tomorrow with our project manager and then I think we will be ready to go. 
The rebuilding seems to have taken ages in the planning but we have had so much going on that we haven't been at all concerned.( and  we (I ) keep changing things...!)
 Bill will be very happy to have a shed though!!!


I have been devouring this Diggers catalogue for a couple of days now. Even the words Winter Garden conjure up some loveliness to me.

....as does Wintersweet 

............and persimmon...

Do we need two more trees to care for and water??
Course we do !!! 
I am sending off the order tomorrow just so I can say those glorious sounding names.....and there just might be something else in there that takes my fancy too!
Thank you David B.

We miss this little family.......

Mum went home from hospital yesterday....2 weeks after her hip replacement operation. She will go ahead in leaps and bounds now. ( perhaps not too much leaping!)