Long Mizzle Garden

 Hello m' spicy pasties, We spent last Saturday morning wandering through a triangular shaped field of Dahlias. Such was the assault of colour, it is amazing we ever made it out! If Dahlias were scented, I am certain we would simply have lay down and gone to sleep, like Dorothy in the poppy field, from the Wizard of Oz.  This is the National Dahlia Collection's first year at its new Cornwall base. Where previously it was down Longrock way (Penzance ), it has now arrived at Kehelland Trust, near Camborne.  It must have been quite a feat moving all 1700 cultivars! Thank goodness for the hard work by Louise Danks, her nice chatty dad and all the volunteers involved. I really could have taken a photo of every single bloom, so I had to restrain myself. Not all the plants are labelled yet, but where they are, the names are clearly written in white pen on a slate tile. Some I have tried to identify myself, so please do comment if you recognise any.   Dahlia - unknown D...

Alreet m' glossy dahlias,   Well I've been eagerly waiting for them to all pop out so I can give you a proper update on this year's Dahlia patch....Do you have your preferred tipple ready??? The sun is shining and I've started early on a classy Buck's Piss, with plenty of ice cubes to crunch when no one's looking. Back in March, the idea was to plant a small cut flower patch inspired by the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (original post here -  Flowers for Frida ).   Frida vase (a birthday pressie from Ol' Glass Eyed Mumrah) The small rooted cuttings that arrived in the post (from Halls of Heddon) all grew strongly and I just had to then battle with the slugs and snails. Twice they were completely gnawed down to the ground. I persisted and luckily they re-sprouted.     Yet again, my overwintered tubers were not a complete success. A couple of tubers didn't sprout at all and ended up rotting. Sadly, this meant loosing my favourite  'Totally Tangerine'....

 Hello m' furry antlers, I wonder what the artist Frida Kahlo would have made of a national lockdown. With her stern mono brow stare, nationalistic folk dress and cigar smoking attire, she looked to be a woman who wouldn't have liked being told what to do. However, Frida was no stranger to confinement. Having a crippled right leg from contracting polio as a child, she reached her teens only to have her spine, ribs and pelvis crushed in a bus accident, resulting in years of operations, multiple miscarriages and chronic pain. Henry Ford Hospital (1932), The Two Fridas (1939), The Broken Column (1944), The Little Deer (1946) Detailed paintings can be viewed at www.fridakahlo.org   Turning away from her previous career choice of medicine, Frida started painting. And what did she choose to paint in her constant bed of non-convalescence? The subject matter closest at hand - herself.  Only one look at some of her self-portraits exposes the true frustration, heartbreak and rea...

A happy mid-week to you,   What a hot week it has been. Here's Wonder Beast claiming the only cool part of the garden. As our temperature gauge on the back patio tiles hit beyond 50 C, Monsieur wanted to crack out an egg to see how quickly it would cook. Shame we didn’t have any.    I did manage to get a few fun, colour coordinated washes in though. (When we first moved in, my mam said she could see our washing line from the other side of town, but the trees have since obscured this view) As I type, it has just started spotting with rain here, and with thunder storm weather warnings issued, it is no surprise the local farmers been hurriedly bringing in the hay.    I’ve been enjoying my week off with the kids and in between mowing, mulching and weeding duties, Long Mizzle continues to reward us with ripened greenhouse tomatoes, French beans and more courgettes and cut flowers than we can keep up with.   [Courgetti and home grown tomatoes]    ...