Midway through February and the rain has come my way, here in Lewes, UK.  It might get a guy down, damp feet and water down the back of the neck,  but, somehow, when the bulbs are stirring , I don’t feel too miserable.

It’s St David’s Day and therefore it’s opening time for daffodils in these parts. The croci have started too, just as the snowdrops are on the turn.  It’s definitely the beginning of the gardening season here, so watch this space to see how my small urban garden grows this year.

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I’m often under scrutiny in my small Lewes urban garden but I’m getting used to it. I live next door to a one-eyed Siamese cat and, without actually being on speaking terms, we have a pleasant enough relationship which I have now recorded in one of my new Fibonacci poems published today in Issue 22 of  The Fib Review.

Sometimes it’s good to have a solid but silent relationship with someone who likes my garden as much as I do.

If you want to read my new poem along with the other three poems in The Fib Review, here’s a link:

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/index.html

Don’t just read it for my work though – there’s a lot in this excellent journal and i’m proud to be included there again for the eighteenth consecutive time.

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I planted a passionflower in my Lewes garden last year and it seems deliriously happy there. The passionflower or Passiflora edulis  to its Latin scholar friends,  is only just frost resistant so it usually grows in  hot countries like its native Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay where it is the national flower. Lewes in the UK is a long way from Brazil and even further from Paraguay, but my little English urban garden with its sturdy flint walls is very sheltered and it retains the heat so my plant isn’t feeling a bit homesick.  I hadn’t expected its fruits to be viable though as fruit but, knock me down with a feather,  it has been covered with lovely orange fruit.  I had assumed that these were unripened versions of those well-known brown-skinned passion fruits but, another feather please,  they are the real thing and they’d be pretty enough in the garden even if they weren’t edible.

Well, I picked up some windfalls and thought I’d see what they looked like under their skin.

 

Inside they are the most exotic things to come out of my garden since a certain fancy dress party a couple of years ago. They weren’t poisonous either, unlike some of the people at that party (only joking), and, in fact, they are deliciously sweet without being sickly. These are the last fruits of my mini-harvest.  I hope to have a lot more next year – a bit of passion in the garden does you good.

 

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Yep, after all that sunshine here in Lewes, UK, things changed…..but remember….

…rain has its charms and, anyway…

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As you all know, we officially started summer last weekend and to prove it, yes, you’ve guessed, the seasonal change has been marked in my household by my mother’s latest tea cosy, every house should have one. Here is her Summer 2015 model – it is all blue skies and summer flowers. And,  on the other side…

Well, it’s June and nearly time for Wimbledon – so what better than a tennis court  to mark the new season. Wimbledon, of course, means rain in the first week if not the second but we had that yesterday here in Lewes, UK, and the forecast is for dry weather and, believe it or not, warmer weather  is on the way.

My garden looks ready for summer but, sorry to gripe, it’s just not hot enough out there yet. Come on England, you can do better than this in June. If you don’t get a move on I shall be forced to get out one of my winter tea cosies.

I’m hopeful about this summer though after hearing the cheerful forecast from one of the BBC’s weathermen, Tomasz Schafernaker who says that it will soon be dry and hot. Hope you’re right Mr Schafernaker,  but it’s not unknown for you to go to pieces on your national bulletins. Edinburgh? Where’s that?

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I’m an enthusiast about my small Lewes, UK, garden and, I have to say in all modesty that it is looking particularly fine at the moment with all the roses in full bloom and much else on its way. My new friend, the cat who moved in next-door earlier this year, has helped me with some of this. I like cats, dogs too, but don’t own one any more and the absence of a feline has meant that my garden has been open territory for some of the neighbourhood cats to use as, well, a convenience. Now that there’s this new cat on the block,  the others have been chased away in a series of skirmishes that has left my garden as a one cat paradise. This large one-eyed Siamese looks as if he’s seen more than his share of territorial wars and now that he’s the temporary boss round here, he is much too proud of his space to defecate in my/his rose beds. He’s a good fighter but mono-vision means that he’s not a great bird-catcher and, consequently, my garden is now alive with bird song and free of cat poo. Perfect.

A few years ago, another cat adopted my place, and used to come into the house on visits to sit next to me when I was writing. Sadly it was killed, brutally, by one of the neighbourhood dogs and so I was cat-free but also cat-soiled again. I had to revert to my reliable Japanese water canon and keep watch for any persistent offenders. A bull’s eye with a strong gush of water is a sure way of insuring that unwanted cats don’t come back.

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Yesterday, I went with some friends to see Vera Sackville-West’s  spectacular gardens at Sissinghurst Castle, about an hour’s drive from my place. I took a lot of photographs and hope to publish a blog about the day later this week. Before that though, I thought I’d show you my little Lewes garden before it gets totally upstaged by the sensational display at Sissinghurst.

As you can see, all my roses have finally made it into bloom and I rather liked it out there this morning.

As I’ve written before, all my roses are David Austin varieties and they were all planted seven years ago as small stems when I completely redesigned the garden. I think they’ve now declared my small town garden their home. If you want to find out more about them, I’ll introduce them to you by name.

It seemed a good idea to take my coffee out there to enjoy the view. Look out for the Sissinghurst photos coming later. I had a wonderful day there – you should catch the Sissinghurst roses while their at the very best.

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Last week I showed you my first red, red rose and now I can unveil the second rose to flower in my Lewes, UK garden and, yes, folks, it’s white.

The red rose is the solitary bloom at one side of the garden, the white on the other. You’d think they were enemies.

The white one is the David Austin rose, Iceberg and it will soon, I hope, cover one of my fences with many of its crisp white flowers.

The red one, as reported last week, is another David Austin rose, Danse de feu. 

I’m reminded of that scene in Shakespeare where the medieval English Yorkist and Lancastrian nobles fall out over who should be the rightful King of England. They took opposite sides and chose their emblems,  one side a white rose, the other a red one. Then they began to beat the hell out of each other, in 1455,  in a civil war known at The War of The Roses.

The Wars of the Roses may look pretty in these pictures – especially below,  in the nearly contemporary image of the ferociously fought Battle of Barnet, I remember thinking the knights looked like jelly babies, but the war was a bloody affair ending the Plantagenet dynasty with the death of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and putting the first Tudor monarch, King Henry VII,  on the English throne,

Tudor Rose

I’m hoping my roses will live together much more peacefully but their rivalry will end soon with all my other roses come out between them. Then there will be a whole range of different colours when the many buds out there open into bloom.

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Here is the first rose to flower in my Lewes garden this year caught in the early morning sun. There is something special about this moment and every year I celebrate it with a slight leap in my heart-rate.

This David Austin rose is Danse de Feu – it grows and thrives without fail on my shadowy and sun-starved North-facing flint wall where the flowers manage to shine out like rubies even on a dull day.

Today, with the sun shining on this new arrival, my single red rose has the promise of so much more to come. It is no coincidence that the first swallows started their pirouettes over my garden too this morning. Summer is well on its way – we just need the temperature to rise a bit more.

No wonder the Scots poet Robert Burns was inspired to his lyrical best by the sight of a red, red rose – “newly sprung in June” – well, mine has beaten Mr Burns’ rose by two weeks but the poem still deserves its turn in the sun.

Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns (1759 – 1796)

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

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I’m told that beards are trendy this year and just as stopped clocks tell the right time twice a day, I’ve suddenly become dead trendy without realising it. Well I’ve mostly had a beard so I’m pleased all those stylish guys have caught up with me at last.

In fact some beards have gone decidedly avant-garde – a good thing in my opinion because men do have a tendency to be rather conservative in their appearance and, since the British General Election victory for the Conservative Party, I’m decidedly off the idea of conservative values.

Familiar old faces have sprouted hairs too. George Clooney carries it off well just as he makes grey hair the new black.

As for David Beckham, bless him, he’d adapt the latest trend even if someone told him paper bags placed over the head were the hottest thing on the street. He looks OK in his beard though but presumably it will be shaved off in a couple of minutes so, if you like it, enjoy it will you can.

Why all this stuff about beards, you may wonder. It’s not because I’ve been letting mine grow a bit longer, honestly but, while we’re here, this is it.

No, it’s not about my beard or George’s or David’s, the reason for my beard enthusiasm is this:

Yes, my Bearded Irises are in bloom and, be honest, wouldn’t you rather look at these instead of a lot of hairy guys? My Irises looked great today, in the sunshine and after the rain.

Now that the daffodils and tulips have gone and just before the roses come out, Bearded Irises fill the gap here in my Lewes, UK, garden. So here’s looking at you, Iris. We need a bit of cheering up here in Lewes after you know what. (Don’t mention the Election).

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