Mine, all mine ...

Forgive the Gollum-like possessiveness - I've taken so many photos of rhododendrons in other gardens over the past few weeks, to say nothing of the bluebells and other delights, but this is in my garden, an azalea that we bought at least 30 years ago and which we have done precisely nothing to all these years other than prune off the bits that encroach onto the path. Every year it burst out in gloriousness at this time; it even shows on the Google Earth satellite image of our street. I actually spent some time in our front garden this morning - another neglected shrub began to look a bit poorly this spring, so I attacked it fairly radically and will wait to see if it grows again. I'm encouraged by our even older gooseberry bush, which was so entangled with a tump of ferns last summer that we got our gardener to deal with it, leaving only 8" wooden sticks above the ground. They're covered in new green growth - dunno when we'll get gooseberries again, but it's an encouraging improvement.

Explored a new walk this afternoon, one we've often looked down on from Benmore Gardens in a "we must see what that's like" sort of way. Forestry work has opened up a bit section of a glen off Glen Massan, and we hiked steadily uphill for an hour before thirst and the need to think of food drove us to turn back. Another day ...