The 'Delargo Towers' Garden - June

After a slow and late start Summer has arrived and June has passed.

June is the month for roses and ours here at Delargo Towers have looked Ab Fab.

As do the window boxes and tubs.

We decided to experiment with the narrow borders behind the four gigantic bins with planting out Dahlias.

They were all tubers from the 'Bishop's Children' seedlings we sowed last year.

They are doing very well and fill the space but the colours ( mostly a sort of mucky orange ) are rather disappointing

The main borders are filling up after the Spring / Summer change over.

The alliums have gone off like fireworks and we couldn't be more pleased with the Nicotiana mutabilis
 

Our first ever Foxglove is a good size and thankfully a lovely pale pink rather than white.
 

Calendula have proved to be a good filler for a first year garden but I had no idea they could become such brutes. 

I think a few will be pulled out next month.

A similar issue with the fabulous but floppy, scruffy Eschscholzia californica
 

It has been heartbreaking to lose so many Aquilegia in the move from the old garden. 

These were grown from seed a few years ago.

We're left with three two short forms and this majestic gem. 

Limnanthes douglasii or the poached egg plant was meant to be another space filler. 

It didn't really work either, to scruffy and floppy - but the hoverflies love it.We will try it again but allow it to climb up through other plants.

A sweet pea bed at last. Our first ever.

The adorable Monty Don has said that Cosmos are triggered into flower not by increase of light but heat.

So we are baking ours in the green house to plant out later.

Penstemon, Cobaea scandens and Acnistus Australi now called  Iochroma Australi.

Our deep 'midnight blue' Lupin - NOT !

More froth.

Jon and I are more than a little chuffed with the results of all our pottering over the last 6 months.

We are having massive problems with our lilies this year but last Autumn's new addition has done us proud.

Lilium martagon - Nicotine 

Again, as with the Aquilegia, we only have a few and rather sorry Delphiniums surviving from the move and random attacks from foxes . Again these were grown from seed a few years ago

We were unable to move the wonderful black hollyhock from the last garden so it is a great joy to have this one this year.

And it's black - yeah!

Not all 'Bishop's Children' are orange.

Old fashioned sweet peas. Small in size but massive in scent.

A busy month and a lot more pottering to do but I must say - Oh we are pleased...

Gin, anyone ?

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Diana Dors - A very British Blonde Bombshell.

Some random facts, that you may or may not know
 on -
Diana Dors - A very British Blonde Bombshell 
and so much more.

Diana Dors (23rd October 1931 - 4th May 1984)

"I’m the kind of girl that things naturally happen to.  When they don’t, I give them a push"

" I was the first home-grown sex symbol, rather like Britain's naughty seaside postcards."

Dors was the maiden name of her grandmother.

When Marilyn Monroe's first film was shown here, a columnist actually wrote, 
"How much like our Diana Dors she is."

her first film was 'Dancing with Crime' (1947) 
and her last was 'Steaming' (1984)

As an actress she covered every thing from Panto to Shakespeare.

She never owned a mansion without a swimming pool. 

It was her ambition as a child playing in a mud pond in her front yard to have her own swimming pool

Not every one can get away with a Mink Bikini.

She was a close friend of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain.

She loved luxury and didn't care who knew it.

The 1949 Delahaye Roadster, was given to Diana Dors when she was 17.

Which sold for $3 million (£1.9m) at a California auction in 2010

Her first single was released on HMV Records in 1951

The tracks were "I Feel So Mmmm" and "A Kiss and a Cuddle 

She continued to record on various labels:
and in 1982 she recorded  her last single "Where Did They Go?"/"It's You Again"

You can hear her sing on YouTube

Youth never lasts

But a larger than life personality does.

 As well as the glamour she was no stranger to camp -

and comedy

She also found time ( in between outrageous parties ) to do a lot of  work for charity including gay rights

Above at a fund-raiser at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.

and here an icon for Morresy.

and for me.

any one denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a "wayward hussy." deserves to be cherished.

She must have been one hell of a woman.

Here is the lady herself with Russell Harty

There will and never could be another. 

Gone but never to be forgotten

Diana Mary Fluck - I and the whole nation adore you

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For more info click the official Diana Dors online resource and archive.