Everything in the garden's... green!

It's been a wet old week, day after day of waking up to the sound of rain, sometimes torrential, other times just the pitter patter of light drizzle on the window panes. Dark gloomy grey days when you can't get out into the garden do nothing for me. However, I have to admit, the garden comes into its own and seems to thrive on it. Everything's got that lush and lovely pumped up look, and many plants have doubled in size. Basically we're wallowing in a sea of green. 

The deep pink flowers of the ginormous and very floriferous geranium maderense help break up the monotony

The bear's breeches on the right are now skyscrapers overnight ...

...and zonal pelargoniums are rivalling ones I've seen in the Canaries, overwintered outside in the unusually mild winter

Pelargoniums and geraniums are especially loving the warm wet weather

The puddles and damp corners attracted this beautiful dragonfly to the garden.
It's loving these geranium psilostemon.
Look closely and you can see his opaque wings

Thankfully, before the weather got really miserable, we did manage to fit in a couple of veggie bbqs

Before retreating indoors for the past week, with only quick sorties into the garden dodging the raindrops to
pick a few of the sweetpeas. They love the rain, giving off more of their fabulous scent when wet

The first sweet pea to flower, shot as the sun was going down on my iphone

We haven't quite given up on summer food yet though, even though recently we've been stuck indoors.
Here we have cabbage leaves stuffed with sundried tomatoes, chestnut mushrooms, garlic and couscous,
with organic roast new potatoes, beetroot and tomato salad and roast tofu...

...and for lunch the other day, this avocado, tomato and carrot salad with goats cheese

Here's some of my June favourites.

The lavender and pinks in the window boxes have been fantastic -
they're sheltered from the rain, so they haven't been drowned!

I love figs, so I'm pleased that the warm weather has given us a bumper crop this year

Alliums are spectacular,  the drama queens of the flowerbeds

Another favourite is lace-cap hydrangeas. This was a cutting from a blue one in our Welsh garden,
but here in York the soil is much more alkaline, turning it pink

I ❤️❤️❤️ salvias and this one is the perfect blue

When all else fails we can always rely on this lovely ceramic sun 😀

Today I can report that we've finally had some real sun! Yay! This afternoon P and I enjoyed a relaxing teatime in the garden with family.  Simple pleasures in the sun lift the spirits and make you believe that maybe this year summer will go on until October. We live in hope in the UK 😀

Hope you like the new layout of the blog? Thanks for dropping by xo