This hot and dry month is going to be the warmest since we started the statistics some hundred years ago. And there is no rain ahead…so as the lilacs and other flowering trees and bushes faded away these last weeks, I decided to photograph my garden – as long as it lasts.

Walk with me, and I will try to give you some pearls from my garden today.

My fallen and dying trees are all in front of the house. They are with me still – Birds are nesting in the old apple tree and the one lying down still gives us apples.

The old bushes with very tiny little roses are some of my favorites – given to me by the little man with the fantastic Dream Garden – now sold. (You who have followed my garden posts will know who he was.) From that dream garden I also have some rare and unusual tulips – see the header and the first one in the gallery below.

The lilies and poppies and other well known flowers live happily together on the other side of the house, hidden from the street. I like to think of it as a secret garden…(I truly loved that novel)

But the shining stars this week are the Irises. Under their massive canopy, you just cannot get enough of their colours and shapes – the intense green and the just as intense orange, yellow and lilac. Their every bud is a slender wonder in a sea of elegance.