Barnsley House

What lovely inspiration in this video! Especially on a rainy day!

Lavender Wands

It's time! The lavender is ready to harvest. Mom and I made wands on Monday and Sewfisticated in Somerville had a lovely sale on ribbon, so here we go!

Here are some lovely instructions for making lavender wands.

Another fine local garden - Brookline

If you're in the neighborhood, do go and see the Minot Rose Garden in Brookline. It's just glorious! There are shady benches facing the roses that are perfect for a picnic. And the arch covered by climbing roses seems to be just the spot for a nap - if you're in a stroller, that is.

There are some lovely different varieties, and, though some are modern cultivars, they have lovely scents! So pick a warm day, pick up a picnic from the Clear Flour bakery nearby, and then give in to the heady scent of about 200 roses!

An embarrasment of riches

I wish it was June all year round! I filled many many vases with rose buds and put three on each flat surface of my home, but it still was just nearly enough. It is such a beautiful June, even with the rain. We found a bunch of mushrooms growing by the far wall. It's funny the way everything seems to enjoy a cool, wet spring - roses, foxgloves, mushrooms. The lavender will be blooming in another week!

The June garden is beginning - roses and more roses

The foxgloves survived!

The foxgloves survived their weedwhacker assault and then their abduction from the dangerous path they were trying to inhabit. Whew! Now just another 200 to transplant. Did anyone else have a foxglove year? My mother-in-law had new foxgloves in surprising places too.

The cutting garden!

We've dreamt of turning the bricked terrace in back of the potting shed into a cutting garden, with space for extra plants when things croak out in the front gardens.

And now we've done it! Mom's planted plenty of irises that needed a home, some lambs ears that were getting in the way under the york rose. Now I've contributed about 100 orphaned foxgloves, who sowed themselves into a gravel path and were almost murdered by an overly enthusiastic weed whacker. They have roots, even if they don't have a lot of leaves!