Living in the garden

June 30th, the day before Canada day. If I was a Canadian gardener, the front yard would be ablaze with red geraniums and white shasta daisies. Actually, despite the soggy weather, the front garden is attempting a vague nod to July 1st. That's at street level, where the tubs are full of geraniums and white spider flowers. Further back, the enchantment lilies are an orange sunburst and with the blue campanula, there seems to be a Dutch theme going on. Where did that come from? No connection to us, but I love the opposition of orange and blue.

The lilies have been in the garden for years. So long that I don't remember buying them. But they are a stalwart of the front yard. I look forward to their return every year, and, based on the comments I get from the neighbourly dog walkers, so do many other people who take their morning stroll down our street.

They are such an outrageous colour, (the lilies, not the dog walkers), I often think that they don't really belong in our rock terraces. However, I wouldn't want to be without them. We had a pot of them in the front garden in the UK, and before that they were the one flower that I had to have in my wedding bouquet, and before that they were the first flowers that HG bought for me one dreamy day on Queens Street in Leicester.

This year its been so wet that the slugs and other nasties have taken over the garden. I was horrified to find fornicating red beetles followed by black sludgey beings chewing up the leaves of my precious lilies. I was so upset, and resorted to wiping down the leaves with soapy water for several days running. Fortunately it seems to have paid off. the lilies are shouting as loudly as ever in vibrant orange -- Happy Canada Day.