Life in a Brittany Garden

So here I am scrabbling through photos to find lovely pictures of things that haven’t been affected by rain! And obviously I’ve come up with rocks. Seeing as I know next to nothing about geology, this is hardly going to be an informative post. Some of these rocks have lichens on them and some of…

Having got accustomed to no rain, it’s taking a while to re-adjust to ‘normal’ Brittany weather. It seems to have rained non-stop in my absence. I say that because the garden I left ten days ago is now a sodden, mouldy mess – with grass ankle high and toppling over. Flower buds have balled instead…

September (and sometimes October) can be one of the absolute best times of year here. The holiday season finishes, the beaches empty, people go back to work or school and… the weather is generally marvelous! This year proves it again. Almost unbroken sunshine until today – which is why I’m writing this rather than doing…

I wasn’t as rigorous as I should have been with the pruning of my various Buddleia bushes this Spring. I had done a cursory cutting back in the winter, just so that branches were shorter and less liable to damage by the wind. But, as the winter was mild, (and I was still in London…

It’s been a while and I have oodles of wonderfulness from the garden and beyond, and a few horror stories to balance things out. So this is Part One of a few posts to bring me back up to date. It was a very hot and dry June and July. Although we didn’t have the…

Watched this one journey across the window pane this morning. Nothing for it to eat on the glass, so I left it to get on with it. Its many other friends and relations were not so lucky… A mixture of picking and squashing, or the blue pellets of death for them. I don’t use the…

The ‘perfect’ May weather continues. If only there hadn’t been that little cold snap this would be even more amazing. And if there could be one overnight downpour it would be even better… Look at that. Never really happy with what I’ve got! But the butterflies know better than me. They’re not complaining. A male…

Who would ever think that such deep crimson buds would open and fade quickly to such a delicate peachy, pale loveliness. Somewhere, I am sure, I will have noted it’s name. It’s the first I planted. And it’s huge now. Not as many flowers this year as last, but they are beautiful. A chance planting…

Sometimes familiarity means you just stop ‘seeing’ something that’s so right. I think that had happened with Plestin. So many other lovely places – with their rocks, their colours, their dunes… But the grass isn’t always greener. And today, with magical May sunshine, clear light and beautiful blue skies, Plestin suddenly re-instated itself as the…

Well it was cold. Météo France had a little article saying that it was the coldest May temperatures for forty years. I don’t know about that. However my maximum/minimum thermometer in the depths of the barn showed -1 degrees. What I know is that emerging oak leaves are shrivelled, some of my lilies have collapsed.…