Peonies are one of my favourite flowers. Something about the oversize, the excess of petals, the total commitment to colour.

I feel the same way about dahlias. In my grand garden plan there will be dahlias…

For now I do have a lovely clematis. A bit washed out for my taste, but A+ for profusion.

My most recent delightful surprise were the chestnut trees. I have done a little research and I believe they will have another proper name, a particular variety, but I will lump them together as chestnuts for now until a tree expert tells me otherwise. I have never lived anywhere with a chestnut tree before and I didn’t realize the flowers were so incredibly beautiful! We have one that flowered the usual white and it was lovely.

This tree is quite large and you can easily stand underneath it. When in full bloom the tree buzzed; it hummed with hundreds, possibly thousands, of satisfied bees. I could not believe it the first time I stood there and realised what I was hearing. They were so intent at their work they paid no attention to the silly human grinning up at them.

But wait there’s more….

We have several of these – PINK chestnuts. I have no idea how rare they are, but I looked around during the blooming season and could not see another anywhere I went. They are probably not rare at all. I went photo nuts!

How gorgeous is that?!

Princess Crookshanks contemplating her next move. Nap, or chase birds?

Note: I know Crookshanks is a male cat in the Harry Potter books, but when we got her as a kitten about 11 years ago we were reading the series as they were published and any cat we got was going to be Crookshanks. She is the smartest cat in the world and speaks english. True story.