Blue skies sucked me into a false sense of security today and I had applied two coats of ‘Wild Thyme’ to the verticals of the rose arbour and was even thinking I might get it ALL painted today when the skies gradually darkened, leaving me to scurry round looking for tarpaulins and other waterproof substitutes to protect the posts from the rain. The product dries very quickly, particularly once the first coat is on – and probably only needed another hour at the most to be perfectly safe – but tomorrow will tell how much it has been affected by the dampness of the rest of the day. Before the rain threatened there were at least a few brief moments to realise just how different the arbour was going to look in its new grey green coat – and to remind me just how effective this colour is for garden woodwork.
The rain may well have stopped my painting task, but didn’t stop me rambling around the garden and admiring my newest pleasures – Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’, smothered in flowers for the first time, buds on Helleborus niger ‘Christmas Carol’ (rubbish photo, so not shown here) and H ‘Ellen Picotee’ and – whoohoo! – a bud on snowdrop Galanthus ‘Faringdon Double’!
Rambling in the Garden 
The Met. Office promised us torrential rain today and all we got was drizzle which didn’ t stop me getting on. Obviously such depressing forecasts don’ t worry you either. Great that you got your painting done. I like Wild Thyme for woodwork too. Don’ t you think the Viburnums are particularly floriferous this year?
Likewise the forecast for yesterday was rain all day here, but it didn’t materialise till late morning so I made use of the unexpectedly dry hours while I could… Don’t know about viburnums generally, as this is my first experience of one – but mine is certainly wonderfully floriferous 🙂
Hi, I also have Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ in my garden. Planted some 10+ years ago. And here in my USA zone7 Mid-Atlantic garden it tries to bloom in the spring as it should; but most years the frost ruins the show. We can have spring like warmth at any time in February and March which gets ‘Dawn’ in a blooming mood and then the weather goes back to winter. I do get some blooms to enjoy but not enough and have entrained ‘shovel pruning’ on many occasions. So it’s a good thing that a climbing rose that I allowed to use ‘Dawn’ as support blooms very well. The rose is ‘Silver Moon’ (one of the roses bent on world domination) and the flower show every year means ‘Dawn’ is spared a removal. I get your posts via email and enjoy them very much. Happy Gardening!
I love to be able to have one plant supporting another too. I have envied ‘Dawn’ in other gardens before and tried one in a big pot but it didn’t like it – so I am really thrilled with this show. Glad you enjoy my posts – I just tell it it how it is… 🙂
It will be such a grand rose arbour when it is completed…Love the Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’, really spectacular.
Thanks Charlie – this is where Rambling Rector rambles but most of the posts will have clematis on them and the front too are in line for another rose…
I don’t think there will to many painting opportunity over the next few days. I look forward to seeing the arbour in all its glory in the summer.
Don’t you believe it Brian – I will be there, brush at the ready, for the first available clear spell tomorrow… 😉
If the wind is in the south tomorrow can you waft some of the Viburnum perfume my way. The beach is 1m deep in seaweed and somewhat pungent. Thanks
And I shall wave a sprig in your direction if it isn’t ps very kind of the sea to wash up all that smelly seaweed in exchange for all the topsoil and mulch you have lost 😉
Well Cailleach Bhuer (known to her friends as the Blue-faced Hag of Winter) is also reputed to be the bringer of life.
Nice blooms. You have a snowdrop about to bloom??? That seems out of season to me. At least it would be for around here. Ours don’t pop out of the ground until at least February. I think the color for your arbor is gorgeous.
There are some snowdrops that do flower before Christmas and some even earlier than this, but this one s new to me and I have never had one beginning to show a flower in mid November before…there is a long way to go before it opens fully though, if it does, that is. It took a lot of sample pots before I discovered this colour, but knew straight away that it was just right
I wonder whether your painting activities were curtailed today Cathy. Here’s its been an improvement on yesterday wet stuff wise but extremely windy. Abnormally mild though. Great to see that your ‘Faringdon Double’ is coming through 🙂 I’ve not checked the patch of them in the garden yet but some of them in pots have been fully open for a few days now. I’ve taken all my pots under cover for now as they were getting absolutely saturated.
Hmm, is it worth taking the pots inside to keep the rain off? I was going to wait till my newbies were in flower and then insert them in their baskets into their proper place – want to toughen them up for the real world 😉
‘Wild Thyme’ is a great color choice. I do hope the wet weather will not ruin your efforts.
Thanks John there were a couple of posts that needed touching up where they must have been under a drip, but generally they survived almost unscathed, I am pleased to say!
Wild Thyme to go with the wild times you are having with the tarpaulin thanks to all this wild weather. (Sorry couldn’t resist that). I hope the work was not spoiled by the onslaught.
And, dare I say it, I was even a little wild at not being able to find the other tarpaulins when I urgently wanted them… 😉
We should be friends. This post is just like something I would do.
Thanks 🙂
I keep being seduced into planting, only to run for cover a short while later. Comes with the territory, I guess. I look forward to seeing the finished arbor.
We were have the wooden fascia boards of the house painted recently and the same thing happened to us. It was predicted to be dry and sunny and within ten minutes of the painter leaving the heavens opened. I half expected to see white paint streaked down the windows. Fortunately it must have been a quick drying paint. Our fences, the shed and cold frames are all painted in wild thyme. It’s a very lovely colour for a garden. Hope it all dried OK.
Yes, most dried fine with only a couple of streaks where the trees must have been dripping on them