EOMV June 2016 from a rainy London

It is End of Month View again and I usually open to say something about the weather the last month, but what can I say this time to describe the miserable summer weather we have had, except call it…....MISERABLE! An afternoon or morning here and there without rain doesn’t in any way make up for the next 3, 4 or 5 days of rain. And that’s how it has been for ages now. I did water my garden a bit in May, but I haven’t touched the hose for a very long time, it hasn’t been necessary, not even for the pots and containers and they usually dry out even when it rains. But the kind of rain we have had lately has been buckets at the time so even the containers have been happy. In fact, the garden is mostly very happy with the weather – lots of rain and rather chilly, with max day temp of 16-22 degrees (60-71 F) – perfect for most of my plants. I am the only one not happy with a summer like that. Oh, and my dahlias, they are not happy either. Here in my new garden the soil is very different to my previous one, much more clay, so the soil, combined with heavily saturated ground made the dahlias rot, all of them – all the ones I planted. Those few I didn’t get around to plant are still fine growing in pots, but all 20-22 or so that I planted in the ground are lost, never even emerged. Oh well, maybe dahlias won’t be a feature here in my new garden then!

In today’s post I want to show you how my garden turns into a magical place after dark.

The photos are rather dark so I hope you will be able to see them - and they will possibly look better in full version depending on what kind of device you are using. 

They are all taken after it got properly dark and I have not used a flash so the only light source is the solar and battery lights you see.

This is a chain of lights I have in the ceanothus, where the huge branch broke off, the chain looks decorative in daylight too.

And this is the view from my living room window after dark.

I am rather pleased with those new snowdrop lights.

Even the birdbath has got lights for tonight, submersible tea lights.

The solar blossom tree looks more like a Christmas tree on a distance, but if you go up-close you can see the individual flowers. They look like glass.

I have several lights on the fence dotted around the garden and I will get a few more, they are not exactly reading light, but that’s not the intention – they give just enough light so I am able to safely walk around without putting the full-beam work light on (reserved for garden work after dark).

I have two movies for you today, the first one is a short one showing the view from my backdoor the other day when the weather was showing off its bad side again. Mother Nature was even throwing in some thunder while I was filming, just for good measure. If you listen carefully you will be able to hear it, although because it was right above me, the sound was so deafening that the microphone on my camcorder just gave up recording the thunder and the sound is much more quiet as a result. As the rain calms down you can also hear the sparrows squabbling in the background.

The second movie is filmed on one of those days in between where we actually had an afternoon with nice weather. I have had to plan filming, photography – and garden work carefully to get anything done the last couple of weeks, and even with careful planning I have often gone out - just to find the forecast is wrong and it starts raining after just a little while. But here was a rare day when it was nice, not as hot as you might get the impression of, but it was even sunny now and then!

The music for this movie is Nocturne from String Quartet no. 2 in D by Alexander Borodin, and this is a movie you absolutely should see and hear in full screen with your speakers on quite loud and at the best resolution your Internet connection will allow, the buttons for changing the quality and screen are down in the bottom right corner.

The cat next door is making a guest appearance in today’s film, he is keeping me company just about every day when I am outside, but will usually go home after a few hours to get fed as he has learned from experience that it’s no point asking for food at my house.

Oh, and have a lookout for the leafcutter bee around 1:33 min into the movie, I was filming the rose Gertrude Jekyll and saw this bee kind of in my side vision taking a big bite of a leaf and rolling it up! It was obviously not planned and prepared in terms of filming so it got a bit rushed and out of focus, but I decided to keep it anyway. I have never seen a leafcutter bee before, only the results they are leaving – and the first time I see one I am watching it through my camcorder whilst filming. Amazing! It’s very quick so blink and you’ll miss it :-)

One final photo from my magical night garden – I have a bowl on my table that comes to life after it gets dark, here with water pearls, submersible tea lights and a single oriental lily.

That was it for today, next post will be Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day on the 15th July, but you can see short updates about my garden on my Facebook page, just send me a friend request to see all my posts.

I am linking today’s post to Helen at The Patient Gardener’s Weblog.

Until next time, take care.