For you, from my garden

You could be forgiven, when looking at these photos, if you think I must have a beautiful garden.  I don’t!  It’s a jungle, really … but it’s amazing what a deceptive web I can weave with a little bit of close-up photography, which maximises the marvellous and minimises the messy! 🙂

I don’t even know what some of the stuff is in my garden – take this, for instance, which could even be a weed for all I know (I’m counting on the gardeners amongst you to enlighten me …):

Whatever it is, those two little bugs you can see spent a l-o-n-g time inspecting and sampling it, so it can stay even if it is a weed 😉

And then there’s the odds and sods, one of which is definitely a weed, but I just cannot resist its beautiful violet flowers …

Let’s not forget the snowball tree – oh, and who can resist the forget-me-nots (even if they do have a tendency to procreate and populate at an alarming rate!):

And what about the rhododendrons, the first of which starts flowering in late July and the last of which is just coming into bud now – such beautiful colours, and they just keep on keeping on, despite receiving no TLC whatsoever from me:

I’ve saved my very favouritest (!) for last:  the clematis.  I have two of these, one of which starts flowering some time in October, and the other of which is much later (so no photos of that this time – but later on, I promise! 🙂 ):

And you know what I’m really enjoying about the garden, now that I’ve retired?  I have all day, every day, to spend out there if I want to – soaking up the smells and the sounds and the colours, with or without my camera as I feel so inclined:  blissful!  Of course, there is also the fact that now I’m retired and I have all this time on my hands, there is no longer any excuse for a messy jungle out there … 🙂