On a grey day in Lewes, I was cheered by my small apple tree deciding to sprout lily flowers as well as a good potential harvest of rosy little apples. Was it magic or was it one of my lilies hitching a lift up to the light?

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I often have dirty hands. Well, dirty might not be the right adjective. I often have stained hands. A bit like Lady Macbeth but without the blood. My hands, as you can see in this photograph, have been covered with an exotic saffron-coloured stain recently and I think it’s worth it. It’s all about lilies.

Recently, there has usually been a large vase of lilies brightening up the ground floor (ok, first floor you Americans) of my house. The indoor hyacinths are now over so the fragrance of lilies is my next aroma of choice. Yes, I know you can buy sprays that make your home smell like, or so they say, Spring but they usually make quite innocent households smell like a Persian brothel. Why get an unconvincing fake if you can buy the real thing.

So now the house smells of lilies and looks pretty good too. The only trouble is the red pollen that covers the lily’s stamens. It might look attractive but you only have to brush against it and it will cover your clothes with a pretty well indelible stain. I have some t-shirts and shirts with the lily’s imprint so now I remove the pollen when the flowers open.

They last longer too in their neutered state and,  currently, there are no bees or butterflies flying around my place so no one is being deprived of anything except the lilies and even they seem perfectly happy.

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It’s been a dreadful summer here in Lewes, UK but before I dispair at the weather forecast that predicts even more rain on its way, I’m going to enjoy a brief moment of summer pleasure out there in my garden. It rained yesterday, deluged in fact,  just after I took these photographs and the smell from the garden was almost sinfully exotic. The lilies and roses competed for dominance but they were joined by the newly flowering – and very late – heliotropes with their intoxicating vanilla perfume.  There are plenty more of these plants waiting to flower if the summer is kind to them. They should fill the garden with perfume long after the lilies have finished.

The roses are coming back in their second flush after being knocked around by all the rain in June and  July – the flowers, like this Benjamin Britten, look just as good as the first flush.

More perfume comes from the perennial sweet peas – so vigorous that I have to keep hacking them down…

…and then crowning all this perfume stuff,  the wonderfully rich fragrance of trachelospermum jasminoides or Star Jasmine a truly ever-green jasmine, or pseudo jasmine actually because it isn’t really a jasmine at all.  I hope one day it will cover one of my walls. It was everywhere I went on a recent holiday in Liguria, Italy but it is taking a little longer here to get as massive but all the summer rain has given it a growth spurt.

Time for a last look at those lilies, hope you can smell them from where you are. August can be very beautiful here in my little Lewes garden –  in spite of the rain.

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My garden has had a change of mood since I went away for the weekend – lilies and apples, exotic fruition and a few welcome hints of high summer.

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