Le Jardin.............

Today it has been pleasant enough to do some pottering in the garden. The recent showery weather has served to encourage everything to flourish so we have been busy mowing and weeding. The gardens here are so lovely it is a real pleasure to be able to spend time outdoors simply enjoying the colours and scents that are everywhere. A lot of shrubs are flowering and some are laden down with sweet blossoms attracting several types of bees (honey bees and bumble bees that we recognise), the air is heavy with their scent especially in the early evening. The mimosa trees are in bloom and the lavender will soon be flowering. The herb garden and rosemary border is looking (and smelling!), fabulous. The "potager" continues to thrive despite some high winds at the weekend in which the snow peas and mange tout suffered along with some root vegetables which parted company with their stems!! Delphiniums, poppies, pinks, chrysanthemums, carnations to name but a few provide an array of vibrant colour in the cottage garden and succulents, palms, and potted plants including some glorious geraniums soften the front terrace under the shade of the vine-covered arbour.

There are a number of wild orchids here (337 to be exact!!), and it was our task to compile a comprehensive breakdown of type and number for the annual orchid count. To this end we spent a very pleasant couple of hours this evening walking the land (well, not all 100 acres of it - just the gardens!), and totting up the number of orchids we could find. There appear to be 3 distinct varieties; a tall green type, (we are still researching the correct names for each type!), a stubby pink version and a beautiful specimen that we called the bee kind as it looks like a bee is pollinating the flower! It has been a pleasantly mild evening with the birds singing and now the frogs croaking - the orchid count was just another marvellous opportunity to truly appreciate La Dame Nature at her best!