Luckily I managed to snap enough photos for this post, which was meant to continue our walk around the garden - now postponed. Here instead are some glimpses of how June moves the plants into new stages of growth and flowering.
First: the excitement of new Hydrangeas producing flowers. These are cuttings I took a couple of years ago. This one had been in our family for generations and will be pink when it achieves its full colour.
In contrast, this is a cutting from a blue Hydrangea purchased a few years ago, growing beautifully in a big terracotta pot of my late mother's. The heaviness of the showers is ruining my poppies, which I thought looked so splendid this year. Here is one managing to survive the wet.
And of course I couldn't post photos of the garden without a couple of roses, here still gorgeous despite the rain:
At this difficult time I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work and be in the garden. Its healing qualities for stress and depression are second to none. All of us have been experiencing moments of unhappiness and sadness in the past few months. The threat of serious illness hangs heavily, like an elephant in the room which we are all sick of. I fear this interval in our lives may continue indefinitely. There is a lethargy in the air, a kind of acquired tolerance of the situation, but also a longing for a glimpse of something more substantial, as though our lives have taken on a dreamlike quality whose mists we desperately wish to disperse. I cannot advise you how to react, but can only suggest that life tends to hold surprises - and if ever we all needed a positive, bold solution to this crisis, this would be a good time.
My final photo brings us back to one of the most fundamental aspects of my garden: plants for the bees. Just don't ask me what this plant is, because I don't remember except that it is a rather obscure herb - and the bees love it! Look after yourselves, as ever...
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