Mystical Monday Morning

 Today, I witnessed the first signs of Autumn.  Not fully awake, I drew back the curtain to see the barely risen sun struggling to pierce the early morning mist giving the scene an 'other world' effect.  Beautiful.  Still in my pyjamas, I rushed downstairs.  No one else was up. I stepped outside to a haven of tranquillity and nature at peace with itself.   I didn't want to miss a moment of it.  Like an intruder, I tip toed around my garden, getting my feet soaked in the grass and looked in awe at the familiar through this filtered light.  Overnight, hundreds of tiny cobwebs created out of trembling droplets of dew strewn across my garden linking bush to bush, across the lawn and even to my car.

   



         In the picture above in which you get only a hint of the mist, the Mawn Breesha on the left I stole from a ditch in Dingle.  I yanked a handful, kept it moist in a plastic bag and planted it when I got home later that day.  It doubles every year. We are lucky it grows so easily and abundantly herein the South West of Ireland; one of the benefits of living in the rain.   I saw some in Dublin when I walked Howth Head with my cousin Fiona last week but it was sparse and thin.  The hydrangea was a mother's day gift from my son which has grown from a tiny pot plant to a handsome bush with these miraculously deep blue flowers.  I love the contrast between the wild, intense orange of the 'weed' alongside the porcelain fine China blue of his Highness.

My husband planted our Christmas tree in the front garden; the cobwebs are clearer in this picture and I think it is appropriate that being a Christmas tree it is garlanded by strings of dewy diamonds.

Blackberries and cobwebs.  Summer is fading but Autumn is here in all its beauty. 

 

My back garden.  The apples are not from a tree.  At least, not one that I grow.  I throw out a couple a week for the birds.  The sweet pea to the right I planted last year and it came back in monstrous proportions.  The colours are fantastic from deep cerise to delicate lilac.  The willow trees at the end are my attempt to create a privacy screen.  My friend, Carmel gave me ten x 8 foot long willow cuttings which I stuck in the ground February 2015.  Six rooted.  I stripped down all growth except the top shoots.  This is their second year and the growth has doubled in quantity.  Note no garden space is taken up.  My son had his 18th birthday party at home and we hired a marquee which took up the entire lawn.  The men putting up the marquee moved all my pots to the bottom of the garden and since they looked prettier there I left them.  It has created a lost civilisation effect with the colour and shape of the pots peeking through the rambling roses and honey suckle.

These tree lilies be in the soil but I keep them in pots so I can move them around.  Right now they are outside my kitchen window for their colour and scent.



I am so grateful that I live where the fuchsia grows easily.  When I lived in London in the 90's I attended a Summer Fair in my local park and came across a tiny fuchsia plant in a pot.  Overcome with nostalgia, I asked the man how much it cost.  He looked at me and said, "Where you come from these things are wild!". How right he was.  Until he told me I never noticed.

One of my favourites,  the Mawn Breesha.  It's hard to believe that this plant, along with the Fuchsia is not native to Ireland; it grows so rampantly here.  It's considered a weed but I love its easy growth, reliability and its fantastic pop of colour.

Sweet Pea, Nasturtiums, bird house and bird feeder.  So far, only snails eat from the feeder.

There is a web linking these two hydrangeas near the top, you can just about see it!

Spider's web on Christmas Tree.  You can just make out the lacy effect of the webs on the lawn behind.

The same web from a different angle!!


Note to self: use only one device when taking photographs.