The last of Swindon

Raising the kitchen blind at 0630. The sun's up. The shadow of the cherry tree on the gable wall. The softer shadows.

The unequal pair of rowans, becoming colourful again. Last autumn I made a lot of rowan jelly!

http://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2019/10/autumn-sun.html

Plants we inherit are never valued like those we plant ourselves, so I don't expect the garden I'm leaving to be much loved. But I've loved making it, and here's a photo to remind me. Let's have a walk round.

Front right, by the recycling boxes, the sage is enjoying a second flurry. When it flowered the first time, it was almost buried under masses of celery and angelica, but that's all gone now.

I've gradually quietened the garden since I decided to leave. All the seeding stems have been cut back, a few pots and baskets have been moved to Frome, the various wild plants that I was nurturing (mainly willowherbs) have been weeded out.

Behind the sage are a group of chuckout pots that came from Laura's garden. These had the usual treasures: meadow cranesbill, purple toadflax, red valerian,  violets, forget-me-nots... And that architectural rush in the trough, ultimately from Moredon, one of my many previous Swindon residences. 

Behind those, you can see the Chinese Holly Fern that was the first thing I planted, nearly 18 months ago. It was a messy sale item and it continued to look messy for the next year or more, but now I'm very happy with it and expect it to improve by the year, if it's allowed to.

Going left from there, a small red and white fuschia in peak flower, and left of that, a patch of miscellaneous growth now dominated by a tall Common Evening-Primrose. Behind it, one of the geraniums I wrote about here:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2020/05/garden-geraniums.html

And behind that, the redcurrant bush, which will produce a lot of berries next year. Also an Italian Alder, a poisoned chalice I suppose but I'll leave it to future tenants to cut it down; and a Lathyrus which has suddenly doubled in size and may even flower.

We've almost finished this indulgent tour. Along the back edge, the cornflower and lungwort (from Laura) which were so successful this spring. In the middle, more of the old pots, erigeron, valerian, geranium...

On the left, a lavender planted this year, whose flowers I've just stayed long enough to see. I won't get to see the Astilbe, which is belatedly in bud. Behind the lavender, but invisible, is a lemon-balm, which is finally looking established and will now, I hope, be impossible to get rid of. Even we flitting tenants have a bit of the colonizing instinct!

Much slower to colour than the rowans, this is the Swedish Whitebeam I could see from my flat when I looked in  the other direction (approximately ESE).

http://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2010/10/sorbus-intermedia-swedish-whitebeam.html

Looking back on this rather isolated time of my life, I'll most remember exploring the many Green Hound's-tongue sites in West Swindon, a journey that began here:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2019/08/august-wood-in-swindon.html

Also, the two albums of songs that I recorded while here:

http://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2019/06/pa-svenska-myswedish-album.html

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2019/12/my-christmas-album.html

And, above all, sitting on the faux-leather sofa learning Swedish, the many hours of painstakingly deep-reading the Norrland novel that I'm now translating in full:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-black-overcoat-going-round-and-round.html

And now to clean that bathroom...