Summer Garden

It's always nice, when one moves into a new home, to see the garden develop over the year. Two of the main features in this garden are the magnolia tree and the Albizia (silk) tree. I hadn't realised that magnolias flowers come into bloom over a long period or that they smell so beautiful. The flowers on the Albizia are so small and delicate and the tree appears to be covered in them. it seemed that they would never come into flower, and then last weekend many flowers appeared as soon as we had some heat.
Some of the fruit trees are not having a good year due to a wet and chilly spring. There are hardly any pears or plums to be seen and only one of the apple trees seem to have a reasonable crop. The cherries though have had a good year and the few that we were able to pick before the birds did were most acceptable. The big fig tree has plenty of fruit on so we shall once again be inundated with figs if the wasps allow us to pick them!
The veg. garden has just started to produce which is a real treat as we missed out on home grown veggies last year due to the move. At the moment we are harvesting courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers, french beans, lettuce, beetroot and aubergines. Hopefully we shall have some hot weather to ripen the melons and peppers.The basil has done amazingly well despite the weather and the herb garden is beginning to take shape.