Rose Time!

Oh how I love roses! This year's first rose is this sweet yellow climber - part of my English Rose collection, but its name is long lost. Could it be Teasing Georgia? I bought several roses at the same time about five years ago, and planted them in my old garden. I bought them here with me, and I am very glad I did, given the state of my former garden now. This lovely rose is just outside the dining room window, in the same garden bed as last year's winner, Kathryn Morley.

The good news is that I'm sure there's lots more room around here for more roses in my collection. This garden seems to be very encouraging and kind to my roses. The aphids are rather too welcoming, but I intend to have some strong words with them asap!

A little friend bought me a bunch of flowers from her grandmother's garden. Strangely, I gave another friend a bunch of flowers today, then received my own gift. I love giving bunches of my own flowers. In fact I'd love a cutting garden just for that purpose.

Look, the bearded iris' are coming out. My first yellow one is out, but I couldn't get through the thicket of rose bushes to take a photo. There are some spots in my garden (not many) that require a certain element of "suck it up and take the pain" when I want to weed. Some of my rose bushes are a unhappy about intruders in their territory.

I've had a couple of people say these are their favourite flowers in my garden at the moment. Ranunculas. Does anyone know if they have a pretty common name?

The Dutch iris' are spectacular. My favourite ones are the blues. I have clumps of mixed ones, and they go through a succession of colours- white, yellow then blue.

Blue is my favourite colour in the garden. These corydalis make me very happy. My lovely friend, Lulu, gave me another clump on Friday.

Not the best of photos, but the artichokes are tall and fabulous, surrounded by a rampant forest of flat-leafed parsley.

Today I had my ride. I'm a bit sad that I am now more frightened when riding my big boy. He didn't do anything alarming today, but Celine had to push me to challenge myself. I did work on cantering today, and did get some lovely transitions, but I had trouble getting him working for me today, and when he isn't paying attention, I worry about what he might do. I did have a lovely time, but I hate being frightened because it makes me feel weak, and reminds me of the anxiety disorder I have under control. On the very happy side, I spent some time grooming Jake. Poor Jake has a huge, ugly scar under his mane, and currently has a healing wound on his back leg, which is making progress, but is still covered in a large, protruding scab. He obviously has a less than happy past, but is a smoochy, cuddly big boy. He is an unpredictable ride, and will be going along nicely, then suddenly shoot backwards until he hits something. Alarming even for Celine. He is going to see the horsey chiropractor as the farrier thinks his hips are not aligned. Anyway, he and I had some lovely time together, and he enjoyed a good brush and stroke. He even let me do his hooves. I might make time to give him some extra attention when I visit.

The roses will be very happy with my huge bags of horse poo that I brought home today. There's plenty more where that came from.