Has anyone seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? It starts in the summer holidays with Harry sat on a swing in suburban Little Whinging, Surrey with normal summer activities going on around him in the park, and a radio somewhere is discussing it being the hottest day of the year. Well it feels like that today! I’m sat on my egg chair in the garden and I can hear normal family life going on in one neighbour’s garden – the kids on the trampoline, the dog wanting to jump over and kill me and the parents discussing what to have for dinner. On the other side our solitary neighbour is whistling to the birds, and someone somewhere is playing summer tunes. Back to Little Whinging, and soon Harry’s cousin Dudley turns up and starts taunting him, but then the sky turns black and the calm is shattered as the pair are forced to run for their lives when the dementors of Azkaban swoop in. It seems to me that the forecasted heatwave for the next three days is the real life version of the dementors waiting to swoop in and end the current summer happiness on my street!
Anyway, at least it’s only three days till normal British summertime is resumed, and in the meantime, here’s some pictures of pretty garden regalia to occupy our time until the heatwave sucks all the joy out of us.
First up, here’s one of the few inhabitants of the garden that might actually thrive in the heat, my olive tree. It’s covered in flowers, but I’m not holding my breath because although it’s had flowers before, it’s never produced any fruit.
My hebe Purple Pixie is flowering nicely. It looks bluey-purple in the photo but is a deeper purple in reality. This was my first ever hebe which I rescued from the sale table at Notcutts several years ago. It’s doing well even though I’ve moved it a couple of times and it’s in complete shade.
I’m glad I nipped out on my lunch break earlier in the week and took photos of my pink damask flowers which emerged all of a sudden, because, as I’ve lamented before, they’re beautiful but barely last more than a couple of days. They’ve pretty much done their thing already for this year. The remaining ones are certainly not going to survive 40° on Monday.
I found half a packet of nigella seeds in the greenhouse earlier in the year and decided to sow them without really expecting much success, but now I have a pot of them! This was the first one that opened. I really love their layered petals and the delicate blue hue.
This gerbera has unexpectedly survived two winters. I didn’t even notice a bud this year but one day this week I went outside and found this flower. Lovely surprise!
Finally another discovery this week. I pulled out some dreaded herb Robert that had managed to find its way into my hanging basket that houses my nigrescens and found that said nigrescens is flowering. This is the first time it’s done that, so now I have high hopes that I may get some berries on it in the autumn. How exciting!
So there we are for another week. I’m off to think happy thoughts to summon my patronus (which, by the way, I’m pretty sure would be a cat, but I can’t be sure because I didn’t get my Hogwarts letter) to banish the heatwave and save my pots from death by dementor’s kiss! For anyone who doesn’t obsess about Harry Potter like me, apologies because that will make zero sense to you, but hopefully you’ll have enjoyed the flowers. Why not pop over to the Propagator to check out some more?
Green Girl Gardener 
Is Damask flower the same as Hemerocallis? If so, it should survive the warmth. Even if the flowers that are present at the time roast, they should soon be replaced. Ours live with that sort of weather annually. (I translated celsius to fahrenheit.)
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Just looked it up and yes, apparently it’s the same thing also known as day lily (although it’s not a lily). Hopefully there will be some more to come. How do you cope with that heat every year? We’re not set up for it at all and the government has put a red weather warning in place which means serious risk to life!!
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The heat here does not seem to be so bad. My former home in town got warm enough to melt candles, but did not seem to be too uncomfortable. A few homes are outfitted with air conditioning, but I never wanted it. Such warmth happens mostly during summer, and rarely lasts into the night. I find heat to be worse farther inland, particularly where there is more humidity. Seriously, 90 degrees with a bit of humidity seems so much worse than 110 degrees here. That is why the warm weather in Palm Springs is not so much of a bother. It gets warmer there than here but is arid. Most plants do not mind the warmth, although some appreciate getting hosed to compensate for the lack of humidity. My main concern is for Rhody and other dogs and cats, since they may not realize how warm the weather is. He sometimes goes wading in the creek downstairs, or the pond. I do not like when he comes back muddy, but it seems safer for him.
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Yes, my top worry at the moment is how our two cats are going to cope with the heat. Luckily it’s only two days so we’ve frozen lots of water bottles that hopefully they’ll sit next to.
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Ha, I used to do that for Privet, who was a small terrier prior to Rhody. We had electricity and a freezer in town. I froze a gallon of water in a plastic jug, and suspended it across the top of Privet’s small dog house, by replacing the roof with a flat baking pan. I hung some paper over the door to hold some of the cool air in.
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Nigella? Of course it’s the proper name for it but always brings Lawson to mind so I much prefer its romantic common name – love-in-a-mist
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Ha ha. Yes me too. I can completely see why it’s called love-in-a-mist.
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Keep your eyes peeled for Mrs Figg then, in case she needs to help you out if the ministry get officious with you using the patronus charm outside of school!
I think I can hear the swing squeaking ominously in the background and the wind picks up….sorry, Harry Potter fan here. (Pst. I have a named ‘cupboard under the stairs’, a talking sorting hat and an alohomora key holder. – flowers look good too. Professor Sprout would be proud.
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LOVE this comment 🪴🧙🏻. My home office is HP themed! I have flying keys, quidditch goals painted on the wall and loads of memorabilia. Makes working from home so much more interesting!
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Ooh, now you are giving me ideas! I feel a platform 9¾ moment coming along!
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