The hanging baskets outside our favourite coffee shop in Redruth are looking really lovely.
I haven’t sown Love-in-a-mist this year (an oversight) but discovered a couple of self-sown ones in the stony path.
Our tomatoes in the greenhouse are ripening up nicely. This one caused some amusement.
My first thoughts for today’s six were our six drought damaged Hydrangeas but I need something more uplifting as maybe you do too. So today, it’s the few flowers we have left and their scent. Interestingly, the gardening charity RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey have had such problems with their hydrangea collection this summer that they are thinking of moving them North to its gardens in Greater Manchester and North Yorkshire, to allow them to thrive away from drought and heat.
The beautiful rose we were give for our Golden Wedding 9 years ago flowered earlier in the year and is now having a second go. Its scent is proper old fashioned rose, the sort that as kids we used to try to make into perfume!
Crown Princess Margareta, a fragrant English Rose
We are keeping our Sweet Peas watered with grey water and watering cans and they are giving us colour and scent which is delightful. We get our Sweet Peas from Sarah Raven as plug plants each year, rather extravagant but such lovely varieties.
Sweet Pea – Dark Velvet
Sweet Pea – Prince of Orange
From The Clouds of Scent Sweet Pea Collection
Sweet Pea – Lady Collier
Those Sweet Peas fill us with perfume all day and when the sun goes down, we have Night Scented Stock, which daughter no 2, a bad sleeper, used to call ‘Night flowers,’ as we took her for a garden walk to settle her back into sleep. Some may think they look a bit scruffy and inconsequential in the daytime but their scent at night more than makes up for that.
The herbs fill the air with their particular, foody smells but maybe they are for next week.
I’d like to recommend a beautiful little book, “Led By The Nose’ by Jenny Joseph, its subtitle ‘A Garden of Smells.’ You may know her name from her wonderful poem, “Warning” which you can read here if you’d like to. This delightful book follows her garden month by month, not by colour or what she can see in her garden but the smells that lead her and the reader around by the nose.
Jim, over at Garden Ruminations, hosts Six on Saturday Pop over and in the comments, you’ll find so many delightful posts from keen gardeners all over the world.
To see the partial eclipse this evening, we went up to Copper Lane behind us, looking out to St Agnes and the sea and caught it in the holes of a colander! The light went to dusk for a while, a strange, eerie light with sunset still two hours away. The rooks went crazy, cawing and flying into the rookery but came out again only a few minutes later when it all got brighter again.
The eclipse starting
The strange light
The rookery
The eclipse moving on
The last partial eclipse was in March 2015. You can see the post here.
Last week was all our white flowers and this week the golden orange hues have caught my eye. As we in Cornwall move into our 5th heatwave and a hosepipe ban, I don’t know how much longer the flowers will last. They have all been going over more quickly than usual already given we have had no real rain since early June, just a smidge of Cornish mizzle last week.
We’ll concentrate our watering, with watering cans, on the food we are growing especially the tomatoes and sweetcorn and hope that the leeks, kale and kalettes will survive. The autumn raspberries are looking very small and really need lots of rain…..and then sun!
Courgette flower
Orange Cosmos
Begonias in a chimney
These were seedlings I was given as volunteer harvest at Community Roots and I didn’t get the name.
California Poppies
Nearly 7′ Sunflower
And today, a very short, sweet poem by Emily Dickinson. I’m not sure that yellow is so rare in nature but like that the sunflower picture gives us blue too.
Nature rarer uses Yellow
Than another Hue.
Saves she all of that for Sunsets
Prodigal of Blue
Jim, over at Garden Ruminations, hosts Six on Saturday. Pop over and in the comments, find so many delightful posts.
Last night the full Buck moon was still glorious and I do like taking a photo through leaves and branches.
I made another sunshine cake today. It was my usual coffee cake for the monthly Saturday market in Redruth and baked on solar energy.
The sun coming through the etched glass on the front door threw the pattern onto the stair carpet at the top of the stairs.
It’s been a delightful day starting with Thursday’s always excellent singing with The Suitcase Singers.
Beautiful coil of yellow rope outside our rehearsal space
Afterwards, the coffee crowd went for lunch together to remember our Dear friend John whose birthday was on this day. We raised a glass to his memory and shared some fond memories.
My scrumptious dessert – Pimm’s Trifle with Elderflower Sorbet
This evening we have been to an outdoor theatre performance of Peer Gynt by Miracle Theatre at Scorrier House. Their adaptation was hilarious – costumes, set, music and each performer just brilliant. If you are in Cornwall, Devon or Dorset, find a performance near you. You won’t regret it and I guarantee that you, like us, will love the Trolls!
Performances are often in lovely settings too, castles, gardens, even clifftops!
The flower filled baskets in town are stunning and, I’m told, are watered by a team at 6am every morning. 
This next basket is outside our Greengrocers/ Butchers and Deli – Grow Box, a shop we love. Kisttevi is Cornish / Kernewek for Grow Box.
Our Clematis is climbing right up the yew tree, higher each day!
In Truro this morning I was very taken with the beautiful hanging baskets. On the way home, we admired a couple of the many baskets in Redruth from the car.
In Truro
In Truro
In Redruth
A lovely warm afternoon invited us into the garden with ice creams.
There are so few butterflies in our garden this year but today there was a Meadow Brown.  You’ll have to look carefully to see it in the (rather dry) grass.
Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)
We hear that there is a heatwave in the South East of the UK but here in the South West we have had grey, mizzly skies for days and the forecast is for more. The resulting raindrops clinging to petals make for beautiful pictures. 
I would not describe myself as a dog lover though I do enjoy watching them playing on the beach and friends have had a dog that I did love. This poem by Mary Oliver, “The Sweetness of Dogs”, reminds me of lovely Kaja and how she loved her people. The whole poem is so full of the beauty of the moon, of gentleness and shared love.
We had a delightful breakfast with friends this morning, chatting, laughing and of course eating a delicious meal over more than two hours. On the way out I noticed the bistro window and was very taken with the illustration so carefully painted there.
My best book buddy lent me a book on Saturday and I have read it in two sittings. As it says on the back, “This is a gentle and welcome reminder that no matter what your age, there are always fresh discoveries ahead and pleasures to be enjoyed every day.” That’s what this blog is all about, of course, and I thoroughly enjoyed this read. I have already read Margareta Magnusson’s The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, a practical and wise guide to clearing out the clutter so that your family don’t have to do it later. 
Walking home from a film showing this evening, we came up Church Lane and loved the tunnel of greenery that we walked through.
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