'Floral Delights' - An Irish Summer Garden

July has arrived, and the garden and farm fields are burgeoning with floral delights. The resplendent foxgloves pierce upwards through the dense hedgerows: their magenta trumpets welcoming the bees with their delectable treats. The silken, billowy roses sugar the summer air with perfume, and memories of times long ago. It is a magical time, and flower foraging and pressing is a welcome daily task.

I am spending my days tending to my new cottage garden, planting and sowing, and caring for each new flower. Chubbers the cat is my constant garden companion. He was a stray who suddenly showed up on the farm a few weeks ago, and has never left. He’s a funny little fellow; terribly clingy and cries until he finds me so he can sit on my lap and snore away to his hearts content. I do believe he is a sort of pixie kitty, as he appeared out of nowhere to bestow his lovingly sweet nature on us, and bring much affection during some stressful days.

He likes to relax amongst the tall thalictrum, and sniff the blooms he would like me to bring indoors. Our current favourites are frilly bouquets of sweet pea; their beautiful fragrance wonderfully potent despite their delicate blooms.

We have a large selection of old bottles my husband has been finding around the farm over the last number of years. My job is to clean them until sparkling, and debut the daily cuttings from the garden. They always have such a nostalgic charm to them, and I love to dot them around the farmhouse to fill our home with the colour and scent of an Irish summer. -Gillian x