In an English country ga-a-rden

Despite best efforts I haven't been on the blog for too long, apologies. It has been quite busy! In fact I have little idea what I've been up to for the past two weeks but there have been weddings, events, bouquets... and a lot of gardening. It's very exciting having a new garden as everything is both expected and totally unexpected, things are too slow and too fast. Existential angst is the order of the day, every stage is so perfect I don't want it to pass but at the same time I look forward to the next stage. Is this age? Or gardening?

In the garden it's all about roses and peonies at the moment. Greatest delight is discovering a magic rose. I have no idea which climber/rambler/scrambler she is but a beautiful and delightfully scented little yellow rose  is not just scrambling through an old apple tree but has also rooted into the cambium of the tree so the tree is now both apple and rose. She is actually growing in and from the tree, in many places. How magic is that?

How I wish I had listened when I had been told which rose here was which. But too late for regrets, everything is blooming like mad. All the roses I moved are healthy as can be, joining at least 50 established shrub roses and other old fashioned numbers. The scents are unbelievable, and each one is individual. Oh to be a perfumier. (perhaps better than a flower grower right now as the last two days have been so heavy and damp and still that all the beautiful roses were unpickable, but they will all end up in the airing cupboard slowly drying for confetti. I love going in there, it smells like heaven).

Oh and apart from roses another favourite plant is blooming like mad. Phlomis Italica, the beautiful Italian sage, how often I tried to grow it from cuttings in my Herefordshire garden and never succeeded as it was just too cold, but here it is a mass of little pink heads and silky soft felty grey leaves, gorgeous, and a wonderful addition to bouquets. Although this weekends wedding is yellow. And most of my garden is pink and mauve. Hey ho. 

I spent a whole day weeding the new field patch from thistles. But it's interesting seeing what weeds come up as bosses here, they are a different variety from Herefordshire at least. But just as vicious! I just have dills, cornflowers, cosmos and calendula out there at the moment but am about to thin larkspurs and ammis and send them out. And I have planted tulip trees, birches, rowans, walnut, viburnums, magnolias and lilacs out there too.....

Today I had a load of bottles and jars delivered by a young chap whose life history I now know and worry about. In the time it took to unload a pallet I discovered he had come down from Lancaster with his girlfriend who was escaping domestic violence from an ex. Then she found he was friendly with a woman who became her ex's new paramour so she attacked him with a frying pan and knives. He then pushed her away and was done for Aggravated Bodily Harm. She left and went back to her ex. He is now living in a rented room for £60 a week including food (sounded very reasonable I thought!) and going out with a barmaid from the local hostelry, but he finds it difficult living in Dorset as parts remind him too much of home and he gets homesick although he didn't get on with his family so maybe he's going to go and work in Dubai with his father (his "real" father he said) though he's quite happy at the moment. So now you know too!

But normally it's all about the flowers. And I am enjoying every offering and making them up into treasures for customers. I am trying to get some wedding photos to appear. Soon!