Lockdown week 7 - Thursday

Today we walked on Carrick Knowe golf course but I didn't take any photos of it because it looks much the same as it did the last time we walked on it: open, green, lovely but, well, not different. So I just took a picture of the allotments, where work is allowed to continue and where things are coming along.

And the tram station, with a retreating, empty tram: a depressing sight.

This is my flowering crab apple, which looks very dreary - nay, dying - for much of the second half of the year. It puts on a spectacular display of blossom and when that's finished it just sits there, droopy of leaf and indeed shedding quite a lot of leaves, till autumn. This year, however, I've been waiting for the glory of the blossom but it hadn't become so flowery as usual and now the flowers are fading.

I checked back on last year's photos in case I'd been imagining how much better it was, but no. This is last year about the same time. Perhaps it doesn't like our very dry spring. Maybe this year it really is going to die, or maybe it's just a bit low, like the rest of us.  I feel particularly bad at this moment, when I've just been looking at last year's photos, full of activities with the grandchildren. 

The rest of the garden's doing quite well, even though it's the in-between stage, with most of the spring flowers faded and the summer ones not yet in bloom. But these tulips are still pretty,

as are the wallflowers and the forget-me-nots - which I shall get fed up with in a week or two, and remove. I pull them out every year but they still seed everywhere. They're lovely, though: such a great blue.

The honesty - which I never plant but allow to grow - is rather puce for my liking, but it's a splash of colour and looks quite good with these tulips.

The irises are coming out. I love them, though they don't last long.

These are the last of the daffodils, flowering for ages just to annoy me with their orange centres. They're a bit dirty where Mr L splashed them the other day while power-washing the path. The path itself looks better, though.

White saxifrage from my mother-in-law's garden. She died in 1992 and it always makes me think of her.

 I like the combination of the red berberis, yellow trollius and purply young leaves of the peony.

And this was from my aunt: brunnera, or everlasting forget-me-not. It seeds itself liberally too, but is easily pulled out; and again, I love the blue.

And lastly, the path to my compost heap. I like this contrast too, here in leaf shape and colour: more of the saxifrage and then the sedum, the heuchera, the can't-remember-what-it's-called variegated grassy thing that grows in short clumps and the can't-remember-what-it's-called variegated grassy thing that grows much taller. Also the thing that I can never remember the name of, that came from my mother's garden and she used to use in beautiful flower arrangements. There are much prettier-flowered varieties of this one and it's called - it's on the tip of my tongue - oh, I know, it's thalictrum. This one has rather insignificant white flowers but there are varieties with much bigger pink ones. But I keep this one because it reminds me of my mum. Also because it's hard to dig out.

Hmm. Sigh. Not feeling my most cheerful. But flowers are always good.

It's midnight 08 and I think I should make a move towards bed.