Today is the first mouse free day in quite a long while. With three cats you might think that I’d be expecting this level of gift giving but my previous two cats brought me no more than one or two mice in their entire 19 year lifespans.

We’re averaging one a day, usually alive. On the odd occasion a live mouse cannot be found somewhere, or hunted out from under the piano, behind the back of the wicker basket or dug in under the fireplace, there are usually body bits to be found outside the back door. A head usually.

And I probably prefer the dead mice to the ones that climb up the curtains and have to be picked off by hand.

The cats are happy with either obviously. Usually you can tell which cat brought in the mouse by the level of interest they show in the live creature. None of them are at all interested in the dead ones.

But when they’re alive, it seems cruel and unusual to leave them where the cats can re-catch them yet impossible for such a wuzz as me to kill the things myself, even knowing them for vermin with no bladder control, a disease vector waiting to activate.

So we dutifully walk them across the road to a rough patch of park five or six houses down and hope they live long and happy lives somewhere else. Or more likely, that the oriental cat across the road has them for lunch and doesn’t feel the need to tell us about it.

Sitting up with the Gods watching a Wimbledon semi is a wonderful experience, but for the final, the TV with commentary and a bowl of snacks seems a better option.

The house is built neither for the cold nor the heat, and neither am I. Like most people that I know from a celtic bloodstock, I have a very limited temperature range for optimal performance, somewhere between 20-25C.

Much lower the 20C and I start to complain about the cold. Higher than 25C and I start to whimper.

We have had a week of unreasonably high temperatures by British standards. The dry spell has continued but we’re now faced with early morning temperatures of 25C rising to 30C by mid-day. Around midday we wander around closing the blinds to the west of the house in a vain attempt to keep out the sun.

I’ve taken to splashing down the patio just outside the back door in the forlorn hope that evaporation might make a difference.

The kids start arguing about who has the use of the portable air-con unit at around mid-afternoon and it never, ever sees to make it into my bedroom. At the same time, he insists on retaining duvet rights even when we’re clearly just lying on top of the damn thing sweltering.

One very irritating bird sings it’s heart out every evening and every morning. It would be beautiful and charming, if it didn’t start at 4am. Somewhere around 4:15, he starts muttering about closing the windows and I start threatening physical harm if he does any such thing.

The eldest is heading off to visit her girlfriend in Wales, a place currently looking at a balmy 20C maximum. A civilised sort of temperature.

Meanwhile the baskets are watered and the pots survive. Heat does not make for happy families but the garden is not dead yet though we’re living in hope of rain.

Both of my girls are home, one in the middle of some exams the other safely home from university and expecting the results of her first year exams.

It’s lovely to have them both here, once you get over the mess, the ever-present chaos that teenage girls inevitably create.

By way of casual update my oldest has announced she now has a girlfriend, not gay explicitly but bi-.

That seems to be basically describing herself as human rather than anything else. Her father seems curiously relieved not to be expected to deal with partners with dicks but other than that everything seems pretty much the same as ever.

My BF1 looked a bit strange when I announced the status update. It suddenly dawned on me that she was wondering what we’d done to result in two gay kids, as if we could do anything one way or the other.

People are what they are. The only thing that you can do is polish the corners and give them good manners. And love them, obviously. It’s difficult to trust and love yourself, to feel worthy of love and respect, if you’ve not been brought up believing yourself to be loved and respected.

One of the best things about being part of their generation, as opposed to mine, and with a certain acceptance that they’re part of a very privileged sub-set of their own generation in terms of wealth etc., is the ability to not label themselves. What a privilege it is to just feel attracted to a person rather than a set of genitals.

It took me years to realise that the person was more important than the body they were wrapped within so I tend to see it as a step forward that my girls have got there so much earlier.

My gravel garden up on top of the roof has gaps, and those gaps are being filled by some of the more thug plants at the expense of the original planting.

The sedums that really only pop up in Autumn are the main victims, being aggressively colonised by the geranium, but the houseleeks are also being pushed back by thrift, and worse still, unwanted dandelions and speedwell.

Given a very warm but very dry Winter, many of the plants are being tested such that it really isn’t clear which ones will pull through.

Never one to avoid a plant buying opportunity, I’ve started looking at the alpine website, as well as moving plants about a bit to try to maximise their chances but first I probably need an assessment of where we started from:

• Sedum sexangulare (1&4) being overgrown by the more vigorous thugs
• Satureja spicata (2), one of the more vigorous thugs
• Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Cherry Ingram’ (3) suffering through the dry Winter but holding it’s own
• Rhodanthemum hosmariense (5) now a lovely successful plant but it’s follow up plants for the nearby section have been drowned out by the fleabane  – maybe if I move them into the seem bed next to the senior plants they’ll be better suited.
• Draba rigida var imbricata compacta  (6) now replaced with seedlings from the geranium
•  Erysimum ‘Parkwoods Gold’ (7) holding it’s own despite the dry
• Aster ericoides prostrates (8) a lovely thug that dies back in theWinter
• Pulsatilla vulgaris (9) only one left and being invaded by all and sundry – One survivor which is beautiful and worth re-ordering
• Sempervivum ‘Greyfriars (10) not successful in the face of more vigorous invasions
• Campanula x pulloides ‘G.F. Wilson’ (11) now replaced with saxifraga “garnet” which is doing well but has a tendency to die back in gaps
• Sempervivum ‘Jungle Fires’ (12) now replaced with saxifraga erbium which is still not happy and being crowded by thrift
• Armeria maritima (13) seeding itself everywhere
• Arenaria purpurascens (14) holding it’s own but subject to mass invasions into it’s bed.

• Erysimum ‘Emms Variety’ (15)  now replaced with sedum reflex but being colonised more successfully by thrift
• Sempervivum ‘Greyfriars (16) now replaced with sedum sexangulare and still not happy!
• Dianthus ‘Whatfield Cancan'(17) holding it’s own
• Alyssum spinosum “rubrum” (18) definitely holding it’s own providing I clear the thugs occasionally
• Oxalis enneaphylla ‘Rosea’ (19) struggling in the face of the thugs
• Helianthemum ‘Beech Park Red’ (20) a lovely plant
• Dodecatheon pulchellum ‘Red Wings’ (21) struggling
• Sempervivum ‘Jungle Fires’* (22) disappearing under the thugs
• Osteospermum ‘Irish’ (23) suddenly disappearing probably because of the dry
• Gentiana samosa (24) Nothing seems to grow in this spot – bizarre!
• Sedum cauticola (25 &28) being invaded by the geranium and overprinted with a lovely penstemon
• Dianthus ‘Gold Dust’ (26) holding it’s own
• Leucojum autumnal (27) pops up ever Summer but has been overprinted with Aethionema ‘Warley Rose’ which flowers through the Summer.

There are three plants that will hopefully knit together to form a mass in that part of the garden.

Phlox subulata ‘McDaniels Cushion’ – One of the more ruthless plants which has formed a lovely cushion of a plant holding it’s own against the equally ruthless geranium.

So what do I need to do to prop up the plants I love and replace the no-hopers. Let’s start by asking how many beds are effectively empty, and how many are being invaded by their neighbours?

Empty beds  being invaded-

1: I’m going to let this bed be colonised by it’s neighbour the more vigorous satureja possibly with a bit of competition from the fleabane. Nothing to do here.

4: I’m going to plant this up with seedlings from the geranium and see how they take.

6: I’m going to move the struggling rhodanthemum plants here and see how the take for the next year or two.

9: I’m going to order some more pulsatilla to fill up the bed and try to weed this bed more vigorously though it looks like the red vulgaris is unavailable and only purplish-blue can be bought from my original supplier.

10.I’m going to move some of the black grass here and try some stay seedlings that turn up around the bed (aubrieat most likely)

12 I’m going to plant this up with more helianthemum and see how it goes.

16: Undecided. Shall I plant this up with totally new plants or let the thrift have it’s way? How much thrift is too much?

19: I’m going to order some more oxalis and try to build up the bed to defend against invaders.

22, 21: Undecided.

24: Nothing seems to want to grow here. Maybe I could try another osteospermum or the same osteospermum for a bigger show?

25,28  I’ve added in a plant or two  (penstemon) to see how they grow and the geranium is obviously colonising one of these beds. Maybe I should just wait and see though the penstemon is beautiful so I could add a couple more to fill it out.

Looking through the catalogue there’s a hardy diascia that looks like it would be a lovely plant to add but I’m going to show some restraint. There are plenty of different plants up there and some are clearly happier than others. If I’m going to buy some new plants, let it be ones that I know can cope with the conditions and bulk up existing success stories.

Being sensible isn’t quite as much fun as I’d like but maybe I’m growing old enough to try it anyway.

After what seems like the driest year since we’ve moved here, came a storm with rain and wind to compare with any save a hurricane. Even the creeping jenny has struggled with the dryness.

The garden has always had an element of chaos but now that’s tipped over into a bit of a mess.

And a yellow  iris that has appeared this year from nowhere.

There are the usual waifs and strays: the poppies, the foxgloves, the ever-spreading violets etc

Wandering violets

And if anything, I’m happy to see them arrive and thrive. Next year I might actually buy and plant some foxgloves, pink for the sunshine and white for the shade.

But if last month was all about the tulips, this month is about the geraniums, light and dark throughout the garden and also rather earlier than usual, about the roses.

The old pink and yellow roses seem to be thriving.

And the new rose babies are flowering and looking healthy.

Apparently it takes three years before they come into their own and I’m really quite excited by the row of roses.

The bees are still bumbling along the wallflowers

And will the spread of the fleabane ever come to an end.

It’s second only to the shady garden’s geraniums which have run riot (not in an especially good way).

It is true that white flowers show best through the shady doom and gloom. 

Whilst the geraniums are beautiful flowers, there seems little room for anything else at the moment.

The wild garlic has gone over, and the ferns are starting to unfurl.

And every so often the yellow meconopsis pokes through the green.

Down in the rather messy fritelaria bed, the huge alliums have also gone over.

and we were left with huge seed heads, until the winds blew through and smushed them to smithereens

So far the watering regime has held good and neither the hanging baskets nor the tiny dry bed on top of the sleeper wall has died a death. Yet.

In general the new rose bed is thriving though a little underwhelming as a baby bed.

The silver leaf shoved into the ground a few years ago rather than throw it out after 6 months in a hanging basket is much bigger and more vigorous than any rescue plant has a right to be. One day I’ll be okay with throwing plants out but I’m not there yet.

Up on top of the garage, the gravel bed is growing a bit too well.

The little alliums, the molys are really perking up the whole thing with a splash of yellow.

And the sedums are beginning to do their thing

Along with the sanguine geranium, some alpine penstemon and of course the pinks.

Mostly the plants planted into the gravel mimic their larger counterparts in the large beds, including a very sweet rock rose.

And the erysimum (wallflower) next to the aubrietia,

But the thrift in the gravel has gone over, where as down in the shadier beds it still has time to run.

And everywhere you look, fleabane growing away and possibly stringing out other beauties.

Though of course the bees don’t care.

And neither do the cats.

Despite warning about the use of white(-ish) bedding the pelargoniums are working well, along with begonias in the shade.

Shady Pots

Down in the courtyard the alchemical is looking lovely and the ferns starting to look lush.

But no matter how I try to appreciate the greens, it is the show stopper pins and reds that blow me away.

And with the larger penstemons just about to appear, the year is likely to get better and better.

I’m committed. It’s too late to change my mind. The flower bed will have to be extended, dug out some time in August ready for planting.

I’ve ordered the iris for a new bed, germanica yosemite star.

It’s said to be strongly remontant, which I take to mean will give me a second flush of flowers in late summer providing I remember to cut back the first flush of flowers in May/June.

The new bed will be roughly 5m by 1.5 m and the iris need 45cm to spread. Apparently they hate being crowded so I’ll plant a row at the front (10 bare root plants) plus a second sparse row offset (4-5 plants) to give plenty of space to grow and spread. If they like the space, they should spread happily. If not it will be a waste of time and effort.

Ho hum – gardening.

The mathematical amongst you will have worked out that with two rows and a spread of 45cm, I will still have space in the bed backing onto the fritelaria and alliums.

I considered peony plants but they seem to take an awful lot of space for a very beautiful but very transient flower. I’ve decided on more roses, a white David Austin called Susan Williams.

According to the catalogue it flowers repeatedly, is strong and disease resistant with an excellent scent. Given the background of green and brown wooden sleepers, the white should stand out better than a pink or darker colour. It’s a bit tasteful but you can’t have everything. Maybe I’m mellowing out of the vulgar in my old age. I’ve ordered 6 bare root plants that will have to be dug in late in the year.

The roses will need mulching whilst the iris will have to be kept clear – they like the sun on their bare bones.

Next stop the on-line hire shop for a suitable digger. The sun is shining and all is well with the world.