I love the smell of Tiger Balm in the morning OR The JOYS OF SUMMER

Sounds good, butty. Enjoy! Enjoy!

The steps up from the terrace to the lower part of our back lawn are the large and heavy companionway of an old wooden ship. I've been cutting back the ferns and weeds that try to choke them each year. Having a wee cooldown inside and then will tackle another summer job outside

Butter I'm smiling because you are happy.

My garden too is looking a mass of colour. Columbines and chives a riot in front of the kitchen. And on the other side a golden river of welsh poppies.
My first David A. rose out, with that intense myrrh scent that he does so well.
Noticed yesterday how loud birdsong sounds inside a wood. Did the experiment today while out for constitutional. Stand a few metres inside wood - sounds really loud. Stand at edge - much quieter. Birds obviously evolved a vocal trick or two to make this work.

What is the first one Bags.
I have to say I just can't choose 1 or 2 favourites - they are all so wonderful.

Also in the field now are bugles and the wonderful pink poligonum (poligonum bistorta). Near us is the coldest place in central Europe, la Vallée de la Brévine, a tundra like valley dotted with very ancient peat bog and a glacial lake. In June the whole valley is covered with those pale pink flowers and watching wave after wave dancing in the wind is just breath taking.

My fave is Grass of Parnassus. Probably because it is so rare here. But, yes, I love them all. The pyramidal bugles are popping up everywhere in my garden, and I noticed the self-seeded ragged robin had started to flower yesterday. There seem to be more speedwells this year too. I have tried to encourage them as I love the blue.

I shall have t look it up Yes, many speedwells here too - and so agree about the colour. In the borders I also have several types of perenial tall speedwells/veronica in deep blue, pale blue, pink and white- but not in flower yet.

On the way to and from our last archery lesson yesterday (for the time being; we'll continue to practise at home) I noticed that the roadside verges are now dominated by cow parsley and buttercups. Every now and then there would be a flash of more intense cream when we passed a flowering rowan tree, and there was an occasional flash of more intense yellow where there was some bird's foot trefoil growing by a kerb or some bright broom. Then there were stands of lupins and of red campion. Under trees there were still bluebells flowering, and here and there in large numbers or small, the cheerful white of ox-eye daisies. Also everywhere, flowering grasses and ribwort plantain.

Just caught up with your post B as I was about to write about the verges I've walked by today. Amazing what abundance there is beside the road.

Very wind here this afternoon, and the wild grasses that have shot up in the past couple of weeks in the verges are having a whale of a time dancing around. As one gust blew there was a shock of colour and hiding inside the grasses was a group of beautiful pyramidal orchids.

Our verges just seem to be incredibly green ...pouring with rain again!!

jacey - Where would we be without rain, eh?

Possibly the Sahara.

I'm sat on the bench this evening
With the sun three-quarters arched
And the breeze is more than mild -
Full, brisk and fresh.
The trees are ruffled and busy
Making moving shadows
Against the grass
And
I'm thinking of the 26 wild flowers
I saw this morning
On a long, long walk,
Full of friends and some
Bastard Balm, Peacocks Eye
And Tufted vetch
Common all around.

....Just about to wax lyrical again when I noticed a stupid error [blush) - Pheasant's Eye - not Peacocks Eye - just in case anyone is interested......

Bastard balm - i shall have to look it up. Great name. And lovely words.

White (well, cream-coloured) foxgloves interspersed among the pink ones in the verges, plus buttercups in full glory, and sea radish (I think) – one of those yellow-flowering crucifers anyhow – and cow parsley.

Next it will be the white flowers of ground elder and the creamy ones of meadowsweet

Meadowsweet smells just like johnsons baby powder.

Does it? I didn't know that. I have some in my garden. When it flowers (v soon) I'll have a snifter.

I love the perfume that hangs in the air when I pass a privet hedge in flower. I'm transported back to the village in which I grew up. The hedges were always a magnet to butterflies and bees. Heavenly!

An elderly neighbour gave me several species of irises a couple of years back. They didn't flower last year- but now their are in full bloom, and the scent is amazing. I never knew irises smell so beautiful.

One flower which I always loved as a child where Martagon lilies (Turks caps) - I bought some bulbs for a lot of money 3 times in the UK, but they never came to anything. When we moved here, an elderly uncle gave me 5 bulbs - just before he died. Again, last year they came up but didn't flower- but this year all five are about 50cm high and just about to bloom. So hope they will naturalise and increase in number.

Watching a family of young magpies
Eating buttercups and daisies
And squabbling over them too.
Kids!

Bags
A slender necklace of wild roses, threads it's way through the dark green hedgerow.

Eglantine, lovely as its name
Weaves through my hedge just the same
My neighbour hates it and complains,
But I am stubborn and the rose remains!

whew yes, came here to recover from education rant.
Just went on a lovely misty moisty walk. Dog roses and the less common white kind (field rose I think) in bloom. Quite different once you get your eye in. The white kind less translucent, chalk white, no hint of pink, with bright eggy stamens.
The wood sounds like a noisy Hong Kong restaurant - yak yak yak - its the jackdaws. The young have fledged and this week they are doing flight training. Short trial flights from tree to tree, with occasional brief forays over the path. All the while talking to each other so no one loses touch with the rest of the family.
We have had jackdaws at bird feeder for first time this year, so DH's diligent feeding has no doubt contributed to this raucous brood.

Dog roses in my hedge
And a young elder shrub
Making its way through bramble
At the base of a young rowan.
Also self-seeded there
Is a Himalayan cotoneaster.
In my garden, things like to cram together,
So holly trees grow out of hollows
In bird cherry, and ash somehow
Finds space in hedges.
I mow forests of sycamore seedlings
And birch and wild plum
Every time I cut grass.
My little garden meadows
Are white and yellow and orange
And, in a few spots, blue,
Among the golden greens
Of anthoxanthum odoratum

(and other grasses I haven't identified yet!)

Meanwhile by the roadsides
Elderflower and honeysuckle shine
Above a maroon glow of
Flowering sorrel and dock.

Lovely.
But my next door neighbour had better keep her hands off my rose or I will poison her fir tree that steals all the sun and substance from my raspberries which she enjoys!