To the waters and the wild

We're reeling. Reeling! Such sunshine. And warmth. And it has been like this for more than a week now; it feels like the whole country is en fête. 

Summer woodland

Summer park

D has been swimming most days since he got back from Canada, in the Atlantic and the Irish Sea. We ate in the garden, we sat in the garden, I drew in the garden, B took photographs in the garden. Oh, and we gardened in the garden... Gorgeous. We dug up a lovely Miscanthus zebrinus and another grass whose name I've forgotten, and they're now in a new home in Donegal, which will be something of a shock for them: I hope they settle in... Hidden beneath a Lot of ivy and those grasses were old tree stumps that I'd put in the garden I'd say about 15 years ago. I haven't removed them as they've been home to all sorts of beetles and the like for many years and I don't want the garden to be without them. I'll have to think of a new way to surround them... if the Inula hookeri doesn't engulf them first. I like the gap now, which allows us to see the alliums etc. Other gardening tasks during the week included moving the alpines out of the too-hot greenhouse, watering the tomatoes and willing them to grow (an important part of any gardening, I find), and tying in the new loganberry canes, which are growing startlingly and stealthily so that overnight they can snag a passing gardener.

The week was mostly busy with some hard family business, but that meant it was all the more important to take some time away from the tough bits to head for the hills (on Monday) or the back garden, every day.

In the Wicklow hills we went to one of our favourite picnic spots, along a peat-stained, amber-coloured river edged with white granite sand and sprightly green mosses and grasses. The place we normally stop had changed from sand to cobbles--clearly the winter and late spring rains caused the river to swell and carry a bedload it wouldn't normally sustain--but we found another place upstream that was equally good. The high water had also torn at the river banks reducing the lovely green Polytrichum mosses to dreadlocks in one spot and what looked like a very bad hair transplant in another.

While B stayed to shoot the hills, the water and the rocks (and hope for dragonflies), Iz and I walked upstream and found when I'm fairly sure are badger setts, which was a nice surprise. Happily there's not quite enough of a terrier strain in the schnauzer to persuade her to investigate any further.

A good spot for a picnic

one man and his dog

Polytrichum - bad hair day

Polytrichum - dreads

Polytrichum - all is well

I think this is a badger sett, there were lots of entrances in the area and a huge amount of debris,
including old grasses from cleaning out the sett from time to time

Away from the waters and the wild, the warm weather encouraged this exquisite Iris to bloom. Apologies that I don't have the name, but isn't it incredible? I got it last year from Mount Venus Nursery and you can see why I wanted to add it to the garden. Such a deep colour and such an elegant shape. I wouldn't dream of trying to draw it yet, but I did have a go at the ubiquitous Welsh poppies that punctuate my garden with bright spots of yellow. And I've just discovered that they're not true poppies, but belong to the genus Meconopsis (poppy-like). More here, at the wonderful Wildflowers of Ireland site. 

Iris - words fail

Again

Welsh poppy (Meconopsis cambrica) a pencil sketch

And a coloured pencil sketch - a bit of work to do ...

Have a good week all.