This week's pickings from the cutting patch

I'm loving greys and pinks at the moment. Here there is a mixture of japanese anemone,  artemesia, echinacea, annual scabious and poppy seedheads. The pincushion flowers, (much nicer than the official 'scabious' name!), have long been a favourite because they are gorgeous enough to swoon over from bud to full flower whilst being fantastically prolific and long stemmed. Artemesias have been a real discovery this year - there are many forms that provide the most elegant silvery foliage for the whole growing season.

I realise I have been rather scant with the flower news and photos this summer, so whilst there are still pretty flowers in the garden, I will try and post a weekly photo of what I am picking and loving most. I don't sell many now, the jewellery has become my full time business, but I am still growing a garden full of loveliness for my own enjoyment, still with an emphasis on plants that look fabulous in the garden and the vase with the least amount of faffage. If you live locally and would like to buy a bunch now and again I am still very happy to provide for that.

I'd love to know what you are growing and picking in your garden whether for the vase or the plate?

A poppyfull of sunlight

is there anything more lovely than a poppy filled with sunlight?

is there?

the toes of a newborn baby may take the prize, but honestly these sunlit poppies are hard to beat (even with bugs on!).

A quick hello and goodbye!

Last week we decamped to a house in the Cotswolds, just outside the beautiful town of Chipping Campden. We were six of a group of eighteen members of my husband's family all staying in one house, grandparents, siblings, cousins, in-laws, partners and a gorgeous baby - the whole caboodle!

It could have been stressful. It wasn't, largely because I have had the luck of marrying into a wonderfully warm family with the most incredibly relaxed set of siblings. Hell bent on kindness and patience every one of them! Literally not one cross word. I mentioned this observation to one of Richard's sisters and she said she thought it might be because there's no bad blood between them, no seams of unresolved bitterness that can rise to the surface and masquarade as those holiday gremlins -  dishwasher rage or one- upmanship or petty quarrels. I thought that was interesting.

There were beautiful walks,

swims, visits to gardens,

lots of eating outside and three generations playing, chatting and generally catching up. More of which in future posts, but it is good to be home tonight, cuddling the pup, watering the garden and finally sinking into my own bed. I leave you with a few photos of some flowers which popped up in the garden during our absence, and hope you all have a lovely summery weekend. xx

High summer

It's high summer and we have had some amazingly sunny, hot weather for Blighty and a few big rainstorms as well, the result of which is some stonking growth in all quarters - plants all frolicksome and rampant, growing in and around and over eachother reaching for the hot summer sky, (like the gaura and knautia below).

It amazes me how fast some shoot up, do their razzle-dazzle and are then are past their best so soon whilst others, bless them, do a long, slow burn (sedums, grasses take your bow). The annuals are so glorious, so colourful but burn out without constant picking. As a flower-seller, even such a weeny one, I cannot take my eye off them for even a few days, and some of the floriferous perennials are the same - knautia, veronicas and campanulas spring to mind.

My cutting patch is in its first season, and I planted and sowed the seeds, with my mind occupied more by what I would need for making bouquets, rather than creating a stylish, 'designed' border; no colour co-ordination particularly, and as it turns out, too little thought to eventual size.

 

But, guess what? I'm loving the vibrancy, the colour clashes and the flagrant flouting of notions of tasteful combinations which have intrigued me before, (the top picture shows it best). I think it might be my favourite spot in the garden right now, not the eyesore I thought it might become. Infact, the other borders look a little demur and dull in comparison.