July on a small, hot terrrace

The hot days are unkind to the David Austin hybrid roses who gasp, This is not England! They are smaller, they last a day. They turn crisp. But if you point the camera at them, you keep them much longer. Days, years, even. Forever. These photos will swirl in the Internet long after we and the terrace have been long forgotten.

Above, Munstead Wood, waiting for the cooler weather to return. Its heyday is October.

Lilies and a fall (Japanese) anemone. FALL. Last year they bloomed in August, which was bad enough.

...I worried that there would be nothing flowering on the terrace in fall. But then they sent up stems and buds again. Very unusual, for a once-blooming perennial.

The Scheherazades are billed for bloom in August, and have, reliably. This is a very funny year.

A mutation, Silver Scheherazade, new this year.

And some instant echinacea, bought a couple of weeks ago from GRDN. 

Seafarer, one of my favourites. Some of the flowers this year succumbed, for the first time ever, to slugs. I've never known slugs to eat lily flowers. More about that, later.

And the Gloriosa in the corner (I write it with a capital letter because it is the genus name, as well as the common name. Common names don't take caps. Botanical names do. Here endeth the lesson - well, it is Sunday.) The other Gloriosas had flopped and were lost in a tangle of terrace undergrowth, but have regained a sense of purpose after being supported, and will open in a couple of weeks. Interestingly, the floppedness in the shade retarded their bud formation.

Smoky. The beginning of an evening fire for our supper. Not great for fossil fuel emmissions, but is turning the oven on any better?

And finally:

Dear Slugs

You are cordially invited to an evening of beer and drinking songs.

Come thirsty.