Fifty Shades of Green!
Single Magenta Dahlia
Totally immersed and preoccupied with monochromatic greenery these last days, my gardening world has been fifty shades of green: sage, olive, avocado, lime, emerald, avocado... Suddenly, goggled-eyed, I've noticed the many bursts of strong summer colours. I must have been green-gardening with my eyes closed.
Tuesday 12th February
Some of the humblest of things are the most spectacular - like the vibrant, citrus yellow flowers on my silly pumpkin plant. Lots of my little seed raised pansies are finally in bloom - they're well worth stooping over for a closer inspection. The annual Strawflowers (beautiful 'crafty' colours for wool or fabric, these) and bright pink Lavateras love flowering in the bright mid-summer sun. Let's hear it for bright pink! Perhaps when I am fully foolish I will start wearing bright pink clothes. Bright pink could well become the old lady's new 'purple'.
Brilliant blues, rude reds, wistful whites - wow! To me, real garden colours always seem unrelated to the light spectrum, and serious things like wavelengths. And as for that rumbling, creaking colour wheel...
Pumpkin Flower
Bumble bees must need flower colour to attract them to the food therein. Mustn't they? If you look closely at the brilliant yellow pumpkin flower you'll see a bee snoozing, deep inside.
Wednesday 13th February
Aargh! It's so hard to formulate any original ideas on colour in the garden - a topic that tempts the garden writer to do a Google cheat? Oh no, I wouldn't quite go that far. Though I do notice that green was the favourite colour of George Washington, the first President of the United States. Ha!
One of the Nicest Greens...
Do you know one of the nicest greens there is? The green of a well-mowed lawn on a 2000 piece English country cottage jigsaw, seen after a hard day working in a real garden whose lawns are disgracefully messy and need mowing. Hee hee.
But enough of this colour musing. Yesterday I took a lovely visitor around my garden. Oops.
It was very obvious that the gardens over the water race needed my gentle touch to bring them up to scratch (I've been so concentrating on the foliage-filled Wattle Woods). The ravishing red dahlias in the Stumpy (AKA Willow Tree) Garden were in full voice. Look at me! No, me! Me, over here! Me too! And in the midst of the general noise, the well-bred Bishop of Llandaff - the only dahlia actually supposed to be growing here - surrounded by the noisy riff-raff. Oops.
Fluff-Fluff :- Big Fluff-Fluff has a wee problem with bladder stones a few weeks ago.
Some animal news before I launch myself into the garden today. Big Fluff-Fluff the cat spent the whole of yesterday at the vet, refusing to produce urine for a routine sample. Like an athlete guilty of doping? So he's had to stay the night, and is not pleased. The vet refers to him as 'your wee cat' (Fluff-Fluff is overweight).
Annual Blue Lobelia
Weightly Matters...
And Rusty the dog is having weight issues, too. Spammers - don't you DARE take any notice of this journal! Please ignore the use of the D-word. Rusty has to go on a serious diet to lose two kilos. As should his owners, I might add. We are back to the vet's tomorrow - he has X-rays taken of his limpy front legs. I hope that the diagnosis is easy.
OK. I'm off to enjoy a gardening day filled with all the colours of the rainbow plus all those in-between hybrid shades. Mad magenta - I love your attitude! Scarlet - so slinky! Not to mention all the bluesy blues. I love, love, love, looooooove the colour blue!
Oh, before I go, does anyone out there think that eating two teaspoonfuls of peanut butter is necessary before a gardening session? Hee hee...
Much Later...
I spent my morning hours tidying in the Stumpy Garden, 'helped' by Little Mac my little black and white cat. Dead-heading dahlias and roses, trimming lawn edges, pulling out weeds - doing all those mundane mid-summer things.
Dark Pink Lychnis
There were lots of clumps of Magenta Lychnis on the lawn edge. I collected seeds, before pulling them all triumphantly out. Such a useful self-sowing plant, this - I always leave the fresher plants that haven't flowered.
That Cat!
Then I picked up Fluff-Fluff (still non-compliant) from the vet. I miss his gardening company, but that cat! He is now shut in the spare room with a tray of fake kitty-litter. We all have to go sometime - even cats, surely!
I went back into the garden to work my way along the back lawn towards the glasshouse. There are so many pretty flowers in these gardens. And oh so many weeds. But I think I found my new navy-blue Agastache. And again lots of old Lychnis needed to be pulled out, and roses needed dead-heading. This time young Minimus provided cat-company, while Fluff-Fluff lolled in solitary confinement in the spare room. Blimey. I've checked him every half hour, tickled his tummy, and scratched the kitty litter, all in vain. Hmm. A watched cat never pees?
Next Day, Animal Update...
+10 
+3Rusty the dog unhappily has arthritis issues in both front legs. Poor dog! I'm afraid he is on medication for life, his diet is more serious than ever, cycle rides need to be gentler, and he is to do more swimming. Fluff-Fluff has absolutely refused to pee in the kitty litter tray for his urine sample. Oh no, not him. He chose the carpet instead! Back in general circulation, he shows off by wriggling and jiggling his back end all around my garden, right in front of me. Fluff-Fluff! Rude cat! Don't pee on my plants!
Ivey Hall Rose (Golden Smiles)
The end of a colourful couple of days (and a colourful journal page), methinks. Just look at that yellow rose. How many flowers can squash onto one or two stems? Beautiful.