Be careful what you wish for!

I love your garden! What a miraculous crop of greengages you have too -wonderful!

Same as Sue, you have a wonderful garden. We had heavy rain on Saturday. I got caught in it walking down the high street of our local town but luckly, no flooding. Your peacocks made me think of my cat Star, she doesn't like the rain, so sits by the cat flap meowing her head off while looking at me as if saying, make it stop, I want to go hunting. I found I have Greenage in this garden this year, they never did anything last year as previous owner had pruned them almost back to the main trunk the year before.

Thank you so much Stera! The garden always looks better on the photo's than when I look out the window, perhaps because I crop off the really bad bits! OH was only saying a couple of days ago - "I thought we cleared all that" talking of the mud filled gravel leading to the front door. We had, but it grows behind you and the days go too quickly. Huge amount of Greengages, I will have to find homes for them, we don't actually eat them and my Son used to take them to the hotel he worked at, but now doesn't!

I can understand your cat Jen, who would want to go out in the rain, but then who wants to be stuck indoors, no wonder she's complaining?
Good luck with your Greengage, the previous owner here lopped the top off our tree, obviously at the wrong time of year as it threw up miles long streamers. It just needs the right time of year and a lot of pouring over the pruning book to work out how much I can take off. It nearly touches the ground at the moment, hangs over the pond and drop fruit in it, and all it's leaves later on. It is just miles to big! Also it's only about 4 feet away from the side wall of the pond, goodness knows what the roots are doing underneath!

You have a wonderful garden would the white bulbs you planted be orchid lilies.

Honeysuckle I think most of us crop off the bad bits - I know I avoid them!
What a shame not to use the gages - they are lovely when they are ripe and great for jam, pies etc. Wish I lived nearer!

Know what you mean about the long, straight up branches, I took the pruning pole to them this year and half them. It was the same with the 3 Damsons next to them. Lol, I was hoping you would have some ideas about how to use Greengage, there is only so much jam I can make and what with the Damsons and 2 plum trees as well. :-).

What a beautiful haul of fruit you have! :)

The white flowered bulb is galtonia candicans.

I love damsons & greengages, there are damsons along the roadside that OH picked at the w/end they were so lovely & sweet.

What a thrill to have such a huge fruit crop, those pears look so tempting! You have such lovely plants and I love that last photo - I can feel the dampness!!

A lot of your garden looks similar to ours, mainly because of the very mixed weather we have had this summer! We too have heavy clay soil and surprisingly a number of our dahlias survived the winter in the ground.....unfortunately the more ordinary ones!

Wonder what the weather will do in August to challenge us?!

Thanks Thrupennybit, the garden looks extremely beaten this morning, but no doubt the rain has done wonders and it will spring back.

And there's me thinking that you all had tidy gardens Stera! I know it's wicked not to use the fruit, ingrained in us oldies that waste can not be tolerated, but what can you do, I try to give them away if I can and will make an effort this year.

Many of the trees here need some sort of shaping Jen, the apples down near the chicken run got lopped by the Elec. Board for being within 10 feet of their overhead wires, so of course threw out hundred of soft sappy branches. Now I don't want to encourage drunkeness but you can make Greengage and Damson gin, the same way you make Sloe gin, otherwise a Dehydrator could preserve them for you.

A huge haul Karen! We have apples down on the field as well and six trees near the chicken run, I do manage to give some of those away and we store some for the Blackbirds in the winter rather than scrape them up onto the compost heap!

Thanks Andrew, that's exactly what it is. I gave up putting labels out as the birds (my peacocks as well) move them for some reason!

I love the plums, gages and small Cherry plums we have here too, but sadly they don't agree with me!

I am green with envy! Would love a place with all that fruit On holiday in Somerset last year passed a cottage with baskets of plums outside and a notice, "Help yourself!". Greedily filled our pockets!

Off to a farm in September but later than usual so could miss the apples and pears there. Came home from there last year with eleven bundles of rhubarb. It won't grow in our garden.

You are so fortunate having all that fruit.

Neighbours across the heath used to have peacocks. I loved to hear their cries.

Just enough rain here to keep the plants happy. Quite a bit after we went out and bought a new hosepipe!

Eirlys, so it was you buying that hose pipe that brought all the rain! lol :)

Thanks Eirlys, I think you have a big garden too, don't you? Strange you haven't got lots of fruit too. Even though we have more fruit trees than we can contend with when I wanted some trees to plant on the field, I bought apples, cherries and plums! No sense in that, but they look so lovely when in flower!
We have rhubarb too, it's planted in the flower bed! Decided that as we have no veg. plot I would just treat it as a big Hosta! The leaves look good, but then you have a bare space for a while when you pick it.
Now - who can you trust if you can't trust the weathermen on the BBC? Today was supposed to be rain, so slogged until late last night to cut the grass at the front as it had grown so long during the last wet days. Also got through all my Son's washing to get it dry (and ironed today) before he leaves again back to work. This morning the sun is shining and the day looks lovely!

And yes Greenfinger it probably was Eirlys and that hose that brought all the rain, it's a case of hang the washing out and go out and it will pour while you are out, put the hose on the garden for an hour and it will rain when you put it away, don't water the pots because it's supposed to rain and you will get a heat wave, take an umbrella and a coat when you go out and you will just carry them about for the day! Sod's law, now does that saying relate to the earth? Apparently not, having looked it up on Wikipedia!

Somehow Wildrose I missed your comment when I answered others, don't know how unless it came in while I was typing! I had a look at your pictures you had put on in May of your garden and I agree your's does look similar to our's, mine probably has more weeds!
I didn't realise that Dorset had clay, I thought it was more chalk? The clay does keep the moisture in unless we get really, really dry weather, then it cracks open to depths unknown! I used to spend time filling the cracks until I discovered that the frogs and toads tend to hide in them in the heat - there's always something to disturb here, so I don't suppose I will ever get it tidy.
Now August, soon to be on us, the height of British summertime, so it should rain, be windy and foul!

Now 1 pm and it's raining, so perhaps I maligned the BBC weather-people!

Too true, Honeysuckle, Sod's Law or Murphy's Law - do you think they were brothers?

I enjoyed reading that Honey, I know the feeling about the weather and the fruit, I have three trees here two apple and one a Damson, I'm out there every day picking up fallen apples, we pruned one of them right back last year thinking it would slow it down for a while, it rewarded us by now being even bigger with twice the amount of fruit, sadly they won't keep so will mostly end up in the compost bin, luckily the other tree is not ready yet and those do keep so I do collect them and feed the birds through the winter months.
The weather is decidedly not helping us is it, first we don't get any rain for weeks on end and now just as the schools break up it changes and we get it every flipping day, I'm blaming St Swithins, lol....You have a lovely garden and whats a weed amongst friends, I always say if you don't have weeds growing then the plants don't either...
Lovely blog Honey....

I'm glad to know you've had some rain. The trouble is, once it starts it doesn't know when to stop !
You have some lovely fruit trees, and interesting plants. I'm pleased your dahlias survived the winter. They're such nice flowers :)

we have had lots of rain in the last couple of days here and everything is very wet under foot.
is the white bulb summer hyacinth: Candida albicans?

You can blame St. Switin all you like Lincslass, he must have something to do with it! It's always a shame when you have to waste things, but if you don't eat it and no-one else wants it - what do you do?
I have plenty of weeds, some of them really pretty when you look closely, not big and showy like out garden plants, but tiny and immaculate up close.

We had torrential rain last night Hywel, more tank emptying into the pond! This morning, lovely day so went visiting one of the NGS gardens always good to prowl round someone else's garden. Always makes me envious however, this one had a spring fed pond (more like a lake) how green was I? Bought some plants from the sale table just to cheer me up! they left all their Dahlias in for the winter too, too big a garden and too packed to find and dig them up!

Moving on from the visit this morning Seaburngirl and being dis-spirited by the amount of work to be done in the garden. I came home, OH made a cup of tea and I went out to carry on tackling the climbing roses that needed some drastic attention. Just got into it and it poured down! On the bright side it was fine for my visit out and there's always tomorrow. My arms need a respite from the damage I got doing it yesterday, why did I pick roses when I could have had Clematis?
Andrew suggested Galtonia candicans for the bulb and looking it up it seems to be one of those that may have changed it's name, but your suggestions seems to be a yeast fungus, but you're on the right lines.

Ha Ha Honey, aren't you the comedienne (wait till SBG sees that).
Being in the next county I think we've had the same rotten weather - rain every day for what seems ages, just that little bit of sun this morning. Did you also get that thunder storm in the wee hours? sounded like it was right overhead here.

Bright day today Greenfinger! Intention to do some gardening, sneak in the plants that I bought and that are still hiding in the back of the car so OH doesn't see them! But all good intentions, the nice man who brings me all his wood-chippings arrived and we spent about an hour studying the fruit on the trees, new chickens, and then trimming the Greengage where they were all going to drop in the pond. He took loads of them away with him, so less waste and some jars to make jam, so something else gone.
I never noticed a thunderstorm but we did get more rain. Now it's 4.30pm, can I do in half and hour (before OH gets home) what I intended to take all day to do?

Careful, Honey, you might get caught in the act!
Woodchips for greengages - that was a good swap.