My patio is well and truly full of pots now..think we’re up to about 80 now.  This is what you see from the back door today:

It’s a pity about the plastic chairs, and my camera’s inability to get a vibrant shot of the colours, but it really does look nice, if a bit of a tangle.

Rather than growing roses, clematis, black-eyed susans, etc. up the wall just outside the door, I went for mange tout–which started giving us pods this week

It’s only 6 plants in a confining trough, but it’s a nice bit of whimsy and I like it.

Related to the mange tout (but definitely not edible!) is the dwarf sweet pea.  These are so titchy–just 6 inches tall or so.

I thought I had a chocolate cosmos in a pot..well, turns out I don’t and I decided I needed one.  The flowers are just so perfectly formed, and the scent is true to its word–very much like hot cocoa.

Even the back of the flower is beautiful..

I also got a dahlia (figaro) off a clearance rack that looked to have a lot of life in it.  It’s now in a pot with my other dahlia, which looked like it could use some company..

Elsewhere on the patio, this campanula is the palest lavender, and has just a bit of a trailing habit.

In one corner I’ve stuck a few troughs.  It’s mostly salads, but there is also a tiny crop of radishes and an assortment of different herb and veg seedlings.  I’m trying to grow small amounts of many different things for the experience.

The ornamental side of the patio–it’s got a few more pots now.

Elsewhere in the garden–a bee on a scabious.

The contrast of the white campanulas against the red maple is quite striking:

A very jolly climbing (rambling?) rose:

I love this flower!  The heart-shaped petals are almost too much.  I’ve been told that it’s most likely a potentilla, and definitely closely related to strawberries.  It even looks like it will produce seeds in a similar fashion.  Edit: I think this is most definitely potentilla atrosanguinea.

Lychnis (Nyssa thinks this is a very creepy name, hehe) and delphiniums in a very lush herbaceous bed.  I’ve read that these are what British gardeners are known for doing best.

Rudbeckia–I quite like these as well.

I thought these were a kind of upright geranium, but they are malvas (mallows).  They are delicate and pretty, and I’m glad I got a photo before the rain came and pounded them.

Our end of the house as seen from the back of the garden:

I feel very lucky to be surrounded by so much colour and it’s been really helpful to watch so many different kinds of plants growing.  I’m glad we came in February as it was just before things got started for the year.

It’s been a while since I did a cat post.

The cats all seem to be doing quite well, if their states of mind can be inferred from the amount of time they spend in wing-back chairs with their tummies in the air (hours..).

When we moved in, we elected to keep the two chairs and matching love seat.  The boys have commandeered the chairs, but Kits was good enough to leave us the love seat.  Instead she has claimed the massive couch.

Kits has lost a lot of weight–half her original weight of about 18 pounds actually.  Perhaps as a result of this, these days she is always trying to sneak outside.  Today we had a bit of a panic as I went downstairs to discover that the front door had blown open due to the insane winds we’ve had and one cat was on his way out.  I shooed him from the door and shouted to ask if anyone had seen Kits.  I poked my head outside and she was sitting by the house–as soon as she clocked me she booked it for the huge row of bushes.  I tried for a few minutes to chase her down, probably looking quite mad to any neighbors who may have seen me as my head was wrapped in a towel turban.  I was trying to keep it on my head with one hand and trying to keep the thorns from whipping against my face with the other.  Fortunately James came to the rescue in his sensible clothing and emerged with a scared little kitty after just a few minutes.

There is only one activity that will make the cats desperate enough to be willing to sit within a couple feet of each other, and as Kits is licking her lips, you can probably guess what that activity is..

Incidentally, I know it’s gross for the cats to be on the table.  Mittens actually uses it to stretch out on regularly.  We don’t eat on it (at least I don’t) and I do give it a wash if I’m going to use it for anything other than storing plants, cook books, and large cooking implements (which is rarely).

Mitu likes Nyssa’s windowsill–hopefully he’ll have enough sense not to jump.  Does the little freak not totally remind you of Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal??

‘This are my spot, geroff!  Also, I hate you.’

Mittens finds his own space in an Ikea DVD box.  For reference, this cat weights about 15 lbs.

I just love this guy’s dorky little overbite.  Aww..

London, if the news is to be believed, is having lovely 80 degree weather.  Here in Fife, we are stuck in the 50s, with rain–so much rain!  For the past two days it had only stopped occasionally, as though a big gardener in the sky has to go sort out a kink in his hosepipe.   On the plus side, it has put me in a mood to put a sponge out this evening for bread-baking tomorrow.  On the down side (if you were to ask James), I’ve spent some idle time on the computer contemplating some things I’d like to acquire.  I started out with a comparison check of the price of root beer from UK importers–as it turns out, the price difference isn’t so great.  It’s mostly down to whether you want to be able to add Hello Kitty candy and astronaut ice cream (Cybercandy) or A1 Sauce and Aunt Jemima corn bread mix (Stateside Candy Co.) to your order.  As usual, I made the mistake of seeing how much chocolate chips cost (£4.75/$7.15), getting sad and wandering off to less depressing websites.

I recalled a food program we saw the other night that mentioned a massive garlic farm on the Isle of Wight.  That seemed like my sort of thing, and in a couple months I will need to get my hands on some for planting so I googled for their website.

The place I found has the very unambiguous name of ‘The Garlic Farm.’  It looks fantastic, and I’m sad that I didn’t manage to pop in when I was in the area a couple years ago.  They’ve got a farm shop and a cafe, where surely we could procure some amazing garlic bread.  You can get seed garlic by mail order, much to my delight as they grow many varieties.  I think the most sensible one to pot up this autumn is ‘Solent Wight‘.

I am very tempted by the elephant garlic–the bulbs can grow up to 6 inches across!  Unfortunately, that does mean that the plants are correspondingly huge, which might be a stretch for the patio.  I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to stick a couple cloves in a pot and see what happens.  I’m rarely afraid of an experiment with a high probability of failure.

Speaking of big plants, it bothers me so much that fresh artichokes are so hard to get a hold of here.  To misquote Napoleon Dynamite, artichokes are pretty much my favorite vegetable.  These are inarguably too huge for the patio.  Will this stop me putting some in a pot next year?  Hardly.

Related to the artichoke is another plant I’d really love to grow called the ‘Cotton Thistle‘.  It’s got huge, succulent leaves and fantastic silvery foliage with a tactle furriness that makes it the plant equivalent of baby chicks.  Well, Godzilla baby chicks with vicious talons.