June 3rd, 2007

In the summer if I can't find Brian around the house, I know where he will be.... Sitting in his favourite spot in the garden reading a book. Usually with a cat sat next to him. I love this arch we put in a few years ago and the rose that is climbing up on it. The White Wedding rose.... which really isn't white we bought after seeing one growing on the side of the barn at Hyde Hall. It starts out with creamy yellow flowers and towards the end of the flowers life they turn pink. This year I have noticed a lovely heady smell of roses coming from it.... A really nice place to sit and enjoy a book and a glass of wine.

One thing that has fascinated me with plants is their variety.... colours,textures, flavours and scents. And how even the same species can be so different from each other, much like family members being so different in us humans. This might be some of the fascination that Brian has with the Geraniums and I have with the fuschias.Even our roses have different scents, each the same scent that everyone recognizes as a rose and yet subtle differences if you stop and really take a long sniff of them. Just becareful you don't sniff up a bug!And the herbs such as basil, even though they are all in the basil family they have different flavours. You have your classic large leaf basil and then the Thai basil, cinnamon, licorice, and lemon to just name a few. And their leaves can vary.... by size and colour, or even by their shape... flat or ruffled. Isn't nature wonderful! And again the same goes for the mint family.

Talking of textures, my stepson thinks I torture this plant as it's branches are all curled up as if it is in pain. It is our ornamental corkscrew hazlenut. It is a lovely thing to view in winter when the leaves aren't hiding the curly branches of this amazing plant. And an added bonus is it produces... nuts! I can't wait to try them with some apples from our new apple tree when it starts producing.