Preparing for the Jubilee Weekend

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The rectory is hosting a big summer party for its two church congregations. Normally this takes place in July but with the The Queen's Diamond Jubilee imminent, the summer party takes place this weekend instead.

I shall miss it all as I am taking a break abroad.

Wednesday saw me spending a frantic six hours cutting all three lawns, trimming the edges, weeding and sweeping, plus making an extra effort from a safety point of view. With more than a hundred visitors expected, it is particularly important to remove trip hazards, top all those bamboo canes and tie in that pesky thorny rose ('Albertine') that will - if not secured to the housewall - launch in windy conditions an attack on unsuspecting diners on the patio.

This is the kind of event for which I am never completely prepared (in my mind) because a gardener's work is never done. Visitors however don't seem to mind...

  
Guests will arrive via the ancient and rather charming wooden garden gate. The border to the left (looking best from June to September) is a far cry from the way it looked when I took on this garden. 

Gone are the weeds and abandoned children's toys...

 

... replaced by lush planting as befits this shady and dry border.

The biggest improvement is due to the tree surgeons which worked hard on the trees earler this year. I had been very unhappy about the (lack of) shape to all the yew trees, and clearly this had to be changed; it took much perseverance until the diocese agreed. The rather phallic yew by the path

has now been shaped into a rectangular cuboid (? my days of geometry education are long gone by)

It is actually a nice dark green but I took this photo in the middle of the day.

The lawns have their traditional stripes...

 The vegetable patch has been hoed and netted:

It is too early for the lavenders to be in bloom but the lavender corner (cut quite ferociously by hedge trimmer as an experiment, for details see here) has forgiven me my ways and come back lush and healthy, all the gravel has been stripped back, membrane laid and new new gravel is topping the paths:

The rickety trellis which served as an arch is long gone, replaced by a new extra large garden arch and the steps have been relaid. This was the view on July 2009:

And now

The roses and clematis have survived the structural work, here's the clematis in flower this week:

Borders that used to be a bit bare in the past...

... now exude calm and colour with dog roses and geranium phaeum:

With so much shade along the walls at the rectory I am always on the lookout for interesting new plants and I am happy to say Geranium nodosum 'Clos du Coudray' is settling in very well. I have bought just five plants which hopefully by autumn can be split to increase stock for the rectory.

  
Aren't the flowers darling?

Now all we need is some fine weather for the weekend ;)