It’s fruit picking time and there have been bumper crops of Japanese Wineberries, Blackberry ‘Oregon Thornless’ and Redcurrant ‘Rovada’ to freeze, make flavoured gin, brandy & vodka, and for pies, ice cream and sorbet.

I am slowly building up a collection of daylilies. I have always had a few ‘fulva’ which I have split and replanted over the years but have recently acquired ‘Dad’s Best White’, Stella d’Oro’, ‘Kwanso’ and an unnamed creamy white. I also managed to grow H. lilioasphodelus from seed several years ago and it flowered for the first time this year. I felt triumphant!

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I Have had some blue water pipe in the shed for many years, probably going back to Geoff Hamilton’s day when I was keen on growing my own veg and had visions of Geoff’s cloches on my raised beds. So, this year, during ‘lockdown’, I decided it was time to make them.

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Calabrese ‘Ironman’ in one and Purple Sprouting ‘Rudolph’ in the other. Probably not tall enough!

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I have never been quite sure whether I like this Clematis ‘Alba Luxurians’ or not. It looks decidedly odd, a freak, a hybrid gone wrong. It certainly does well for me and reaches up into an old apple tree every year without fail.Odd though!

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Don’t leave your expensive galvanised Haws watering can outside full of water over the winter! It froze, expanded and reshaped the base into a dome! Now it won’t stand up!

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An Orange Tip butterfly on Hesperis matronalis, a rare sight in my Cotswold garden but fortunately not on the endangered list…yet!