In a vase on Monday – Madonna, che bello!

On Monday Cathy of Rambling in the garden challenges us to find flowers in our own gardens to put in a vase.  This has now become such a regular part of my life that I even neglect to pick flowers for a special lunch party but do still join Cathy!!!

Continuing the walk around the garden 24th May

May the best month in the garden and it is already the 24th!  How did that happen?

A walk around the garden Tuesday 22nd May

The garden is at its most beautiful in May; and even though the tulips are over as are most of the Irises the garden is FULL!  When I look at the garden now, especially this year after so much rain this spring I can hardly believe it will all become parched in a few weeks and I will feel sad looking at a garden that is struggling to stay alive.

In a vase on Monday – First Dahlia!

I have been watching one of the new Dahlia plants; it had buds – never have I had a dahlia flower so early!  Would they be open in time to cut for my Monday vase, the popular meme hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the garden? What would I put with them?

Tulips at Keukenhof

May is rushing by and I haven’t yet shared with you some of the tulips from Keukenhof.  If you are like tulips at all, do visit; I’ve been wanting to visit for several years and I wasn’t disappointed.  We stayed in Amsterdam from 25th to 29th April.  I’d never visited Amsterdam before and found it a lovely city.  The museums were spectacular.  Everything was incredibly well organised, even though it was the peak week for visiting Keukenhof we walked straight into the park, just showing our pre-bought ticket at the entrance.

Beth Chatto and a Green Tapestry

It was with great sadness that I read about the death of Beth Chatto on 13th May.  For me and many others she was an inspiration.  I remember my first visit to her garden to see the dry garden soon after it had been planted.  It was a revelation!  I loved everything about it.

In a vase on Monday – more Blue and White plus a gift bouquet

Cathy at Rambling in the garden hosts the best meme in the blogosphere (well I think so anyway!) challenges us every Monday to pick flowers from our gardens and put them in a vase to enjoy in our homes.  I’m going to be out for much of Monday so I prepared my vase on Sunday.

Before and after the storm

While much of the UK has been bathed in sunshine (!!!or so I understand), central Italy is experiencing weather!!!!!

In a vase on Monday – A spring basket

Monday brings the opportunity to share our flower arranging passions with other like-minded gardeners on Cathy at Rambling in the Garden‘s popular meme.

Continuing around the garden.

Continuing our walk around the garden I will also show you some close-ups of some of the Irises.  A word about names.  I only know the names of about a third of the Irises I have in the garden.  I bought some named varieties from Cayeux, and some named varieties were given or sold to me by friends (a problem here is that they had named some of their stock themselves for ease of knowing what was where in the garden but of course I don’t remember which are true names and which are their invention.  Several I’ve purchased from Italian nurseries call them ‘Pink’ or tall blue so not very helpful.  So I will only give names to those I am 100% sure of.  Sorry if this isn’t very helpful, but just enjoy them!