Oh dear Peter. I long since gave up on the eradication of bindweed, ivy and ground elder, no point while the neighbours have it but with your walls and your work ethic I'd put money on you managing it. I can't imagine GdeF would sulk too long while young, it has plenty of vigor; my 4 yr old specimen today Glad your Munstead Wood is recovering Elbfee, I don't know how you keep track of all your roses. My labels in the pots are all degrading and I must renew, this is another reason not to plant out too many in the wilderness, I wouldn't remember them. Eustace, your variety is astounding too, shame you don't know what that first photo is it's very nice. I will look up what else I can add to TCL, your Bordure Abricot is exquisite I have mixed luck with lilac colours Athelas but this year Eufemia performed well and is off the cull list, will watch Blue Diamond with interest, I don't know that one. Fingers crossed it does well. That dahlia is sheer perfection I find WS2000 a good bloomer in full sun too Nollie, not a scrap of shade where it is on the balcony. Foliage is another story though The other, and better rose in the same position is my find of the year, Eye of theStorm. A healthy continuous bloomer with a strong colour and good scent Other newbies I am pleased with Pear Emma Bridgewater I am torn as to what to do with The Prince and Soul. They both fry but are briefly so lovely . The work to reward ratio is heavily stacked against them.

@Peter Aberdeen not one and the same as @PeteS? I was entranced by your pros @Peter Aberdeen in your post 5 months ago. such keen references to William Shakespere and Robert Frost! Ah. The rose that refused to climb as instructed - how inconvenient when she chose not to bloom for an arrangementnshe never agreed to, in fact one hidden from her. i see the pruning for what it is: not gardening, but disposal cloaked in metaphor. you speak in verse to veil exploitation, call it poetry when it is PATTERN - manipulation manipulation, deception deception, the harvesting of trust for private sport. Low context now: women are not cultivars, and backyard swinging is Not Soulwork. Whatever mask you wear, be it Frost’s regret, Shakespeare’s flourish or Maya’s name, it does not conceal the culture youve created, nor the harm it has done. but still, like dust, I’ll rise. Like air, I I’ll rise. Out of huts of history’s shame, I rise. Up from a past thats rooted in pain, I rise. Into a daybreak thats wonderously clear, I rise. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise, I rise. oh…does my sexiness upset you? does it come as a surprise? that i dance like ive got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs? too bad the theatre in your mind sio rich with metaphor and masked intention wasnt spent tending the one who stood by your side, ride or die, like a penguin in winter. but instead, you picked the garden bare, mistaking conquest for connection, and called it cultivation. @peteflowers

It's so interesting you picked up on that; I had a theory I had to immediately investigate. I was proven right, to the extent I'm able to break this down with rainfall figures. TLDR: "Can't figure that other than stronger continental cold-fronts there...." yes, exactly! Most of France, Spain and Portugal are very dominated by the airmasses of the Atlantic or western Mediterranean. OTOH, I suspect there's almost the European equivalent of Texas's 'dry line' that sets up along that axis from northern France to Northern Italy. When cold air from northern Russia and Scandinavia pushes down towards central Europe. The areas with a lot of tornadoes are to the east of that line, and would have at least a slight summer peak of rainfall because of the enhanced summer convection - and guess what, they do. That map actually does a really good job showing it. Anywhere in western (and obviously southern) France has a winter rainfall peak. Paris is kind of a weird transition zone, and has a very slight spring rainfall peak...and surprisingly low rainfall overall, just 24 inches a year. OTOH, Amsterdam's rainiest month is August, and has much more rain than Paris - 33 inches per annum. Most, if not all of Germany has a slight summer peak. Even Hamburg, so close to the North Sea, still has a rainiest month of July - just barely. So tornadoes can't develop over most of France because there's just too much calming from the marine influence. Sure it can get hot in France in summer, but that air is coming from the western Med or North Africa and isn't usually humid enough to trigger huge storms (or tornadoes) when it gets pushed back down. I do remember when I visited Nice in July 1993, there was a cold front that brought substantial rains - maybe 0.5 to 1 inch based on my memory of how long it rained - and some distant rumbles of thunder at night. My host told me it was unusual for that time of year, but not unprecedented. (I contrasted in my mind with California, that I had visited the summer before...and our family friends told us raining in summer would be absolutely unheard of) So the 'Siberian' cold fronts can penetrate that far south in France, once in a while. Even in summer. I remember the next day was very crisp and cool and she told me I got lucky, it would normally be a bit muggy by that time of year. (She was the Dutch widow of a Pan Am and KLM pilot who had lived for a time in the states, so she knew humid weather!)

The entire room is boiserie. Or maybe they only cook on the front burners. But whenever I see architecture that has stairs with no railings and elevated spaces with no railings, or kitchens and baths that seem a little dangerous, it's always Europe. (I once saw an apartment with an oven accessed from a step ladder, I wish I have saved the picture. I can't imagine using it.)