Ollie's great escape

Today's photo was kindly supplied by on of our guests of Ollie finding the
purrfect spot for his mornign ablutions - naughty puss!!

After a week of weather which has been rather like a discontented marriage-  endless and without compromise but relentless in its decline, I was delighted to receive this super picture of our venerable tom cat Ollie attempting to stow away with a departing guest, so i thought you might enjoy it too. It's a bit tom cats rule OK isn't it?! I worry that one day he will stow away in a delivery vehicle and end up going up the M5 because there is one thing that Ollie can't resist and that is an open door - strange really, as the noise levels when he is "motorised" are not for the faint hearted - i always think very carefully before taking him to the vet!

The gales have battered the garden to an extent but the shelter belts did there work and the majority of the wind went overhead and today the fine drizzle was more of a healing balm to the landscape, than a real nuisance. I wonder what the week will bring?

The first days of June in the garden

Suddenly it's June - lavender is turning colour and the roses are flowering and every plant it vying for space, expanding by the minute, in a bid to conquer the world or a least the garden. Our sheltering hedge of Oleria Davidi has been rather too successful in its bid, until when we sat on the terrace the view of the hedge was terrific with very little else. Action was needed and so today with a neighbour armed with loppers, we set to work and those heaps formed again but by this evening the first section was completed and we basked for a few moments in the sunshine AND a view!

Mounts Bay beyond the rose was blue again today

scudding clouds pored over the sky

Heaps!! but a good job done or at least started!

I'd swear The gravel border has grown more "jungly" overnight!

Roses wild foxgloves vi for positon in the lower
garden and i have to
accept the wild romantic look!

Jubilee Mist

The mist that made the garden an island alone

The Jubilee weekend gave us and unending variety of weather but with just enough sunshine to make us feel happy. The local villages were decked with bunting and for the vital Perranuthnoe party the sun shone - we were working but met gaily dressed neighbours returning in the afternoon flags still clasped. Tuesday dawned with militant fog and so I decided to buck the trend and see if I could record the eiry shroud that wrapped the garden in a comfortable cocoon and so I set off with faithful Tom Cat Ollie

Ollie diligently plodded along behind me

Droplets of water condensed on the plants

The statue of summer at the end of the Italian garden
 was lost in the mist

The steps outside of the Dining room/kitchen look
down into a sea of green

The climbing Hydrangea has done particularly well this
year

A gardens progress

A very special rose that scrambles over the garden room

A garden's progress or is it a gardeners'? as no matter how hard I try i just don't catch up, leaving untidy heaps of weeds in my wake ready for the bonfire. Still the first rose of summer burst out ready for our annual June treat - this rose was given to me by my late father when I was married as our family has always had on in our gardens and so it acts as a fitting memento each year, as it brings copious copper pink blooms and a sweet nostalgic scent to the courtyard, for oh too short a time. The poor thing thrives on neglect as apart for the odd random prune, which is more luck than judgement and the occasional Autumn watering with Epsom salts, it very much does it's own thing having escaped the confines of the wooden tub years ago and set off into the gravel in search of nutrient.

A little statue tucked in one of the corners

The poppies self seed in the gravel around the pots

Leading from the courtyard out to the main garden

Pots topiary and poppies

Poppies again - self assured little flowers that appear each year

The lavender is starting to gain colour

From the car park but making an entrance inviting with a pot

The main courtyard has settled down into its summer form and become an outdoor room framed by the glossy fig trees that edge the small lawn - I love to collect terracotta pots in different designs to decorate sheltered sitting areas but this week my main focus has been in the shelter belt clearing the Phoriums of dead leaves and moving the detritus that seems to gather in a garden if left unchecked - I cleared the arch that leads out to a strangely sheltered bench outside of the  plants and overlooking the field towards the sea with the far off shipping lanes - I tend to call this bench the sulking bench, so neatly is it concealed that only the most intrepid garden explorer can find it - but gardens are about surprises, don't you think? and i always try to temp geusts around the next corner.

The bench beyond the shelter belt tucked in a half moon
of scented hedge

My arch that i hope to interst guest with to continue
their walk

 With another heap of debris left in my wake,  i moved on to the gravel border that runs beside the Italian garden snaking in and out of the formal lawns - still work in progress here but this is a stretch I've done - alas about half way so watch this space!

A walk through the gravel garden

I've put a few steps up and down for interest using left
over flag stones from the hall

To see more of the garden I've finished our facebook page's May garden album click here to see it. Have a wonderful jubilee weekend back to the weeds!!

The Cordylines are in flowr now impossible huge white blooms

Our last May vacancies

The view from our courtyard towards St Micheal's Mount

Well May is drawing to a close and we are still getting lots of enquiries and so I thought I'd put the room that we do have available here in the hope that it is Exactly the dates that somebody somewhere is looking for at Ednovean Farm!!

We have the Apricot room free for a three day break at the end of  May the 29th 30th and 31st



Our pretty fresh Apricot room with French doors onto
a little private courtyard



I painted the faux panels on the wall using a diner plate
to form the corners!

and looking forwards into June we have our Pink room free fro one night on the 6th of June and the Pink room and the Apricot room free for one night on the 12th of June and then a few other short breaks after that so can i temp you???

Ollie has grown a little older since his appearance on the web site
but I hope he will be waiting for you! here he is warming himself
on the  wall above the Parterre

May days and winning shadows



My favourite Irises are still in bloom



The heat haze over Mounts Bay gave an otherworldly
look to this passing yatch

Penzance and Newlyn with the old and the new in the bay

Three shots of St Micheal's Mount, taken from our terrace only a few moments apart but look how the sky changes

A swallow sweeping in through the garden gate back to his
nest in the garden room

a moment later and the cloud descends

and moodily clear again

the sun starting to climb over the garden

the parterre is bright with new growth at the moment

Our Ollie Cat that welcomes guest to our web site is an old gentleman now

It won't be long until the lavender flowers

and finally Ollie above the Parterre again warming himself on the old granite
look closely and you will see St Micheal's Mount beyond the garden

A short blog from our weekend when we had an unexpected thunder storm overnight and the morning dawned in misty clouds but the sun quickly won shadows from the day and we continued into Summer - exciting news as well as the Sparrows and Starlings that have broods under the eaves a Swallow has set up home in a disused nest on top of the fuse box in the garden room. He brightens the day as he swoops elegantly back through the gateway - a perfect ambassador of Summer.

Thank yo for all for your comments i love to read them and wishing everybody a wonderful week

Too hot

The beautiful Blue skies of Summer

I stopped dead in my tracks when i opened the front door this morning because the wind that was playing tantalisingly with the plants was warm, no hot! So strange in Cornwall to experience that hot wind of the Mediterranean after the recent cold spell and of course our newly resurfaced car park is acting like an oven. I'm sure the Date palms love it but for me it is far too hot - a few droplets of moisture blew from the fountain as I walked up the steps beside the Parterre and they were blessed relief to be sure and the house is  cool sanctuary from the killing heat But our guests?? out and about walking the coastal footpaths, so it's just me and the cats, who are trying hard to melt into the shadows and come to think of it, the horses are just glossy bay mounds, stretched out in the cool of the long grass. Hope you are all going to have a super weekend - it is shaping up to be a scorcher!