It is so very hot and dry at the moment - lawns now look as one would expect in late July, and I am watering stuff every evening in the hope that I can encourage vegetable seedlings and get a few strawberries too. The roses are loving it however. The ones by the house but on the road, with full southern exposure had to be cut back pretty seriously before the chimney was worked on, but seem to have loved the brutality, and have come back strongly. We bought the bicolour rose, but can't remember the name, it is strongly perfumed, while the yellow blush rose was here before us, so again not a clue!
The red hot pokers are at about their best now - these are some that we brought with us from Worcester, and originally had in front of the house by the yellow rose, but had to remove about 16 years ago, when we had works done on the walls, so we put them round the back. I love them, but opinion can be divided!
In the evening, after watering things, I walk up the path opposite the house to look across the valley of the Couasnon. There is maize planted at the top, so in about 3 weeks or so, I won't have a view, but while it is still short, it is good to see big skies.
In terms of garden critters, I rarely see the useful ones - apart from this spider, defending a water butt - as the slow worms, toads, grass snakes, thrushes and hedgehogs are very shy. The less helpful ones are frequently seen. We speculate as to why the haricot beans haven't germinated, but I do wonder how much of that is down to them being rolled on by large cats! The butterfly is neither helpful nor unhelpful, it is merely beautiful. You will probably need to click on the photo to spot it though!
The trail camera came home for TLC, in part as the grass and foliage has grown up around it, and yesterday was windy so there were 500 photos and films of waving grass and other plants. In among all that dross were a photo of a deer in a place I didn't expect to see one, and a couple of daylight photos of badgers, along with an early morning film of a badger heading for bed - they have a turn of speed when they want!
Have a good week!
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