Chester Gardens after the rain
The charms of Chester village include colourful gardens bordered by white picket fences and plentiful use of stones to create walls, walks and steps (stones and boulders being among our best crops!).
Summer has its own share of flowering trees as seen in the photo below; a number of pink dogwood trees are in bloom this week.
Despite a recent summer storm that brought torrential rain, hail and high winds, little damage was observed in local gardens apart from the loss of heavy blooms on roses, peonies and poppies. The Asiatic lily “Elodie” (below) opened several days after the storm and received only a gentle shower.
Borders composed mainly of evergreens, and shrubs like the Japanese willow below, survived the storm with no damage.
Even delphiuims, in sheltered spots and well-secured with stakes, managed to resist the onslaught, along with the astilbes, Asiatic lilies and others in this perennial border.
A curved brick pathway creates a tidy edge to demarcate this floral border (with pink again as the predominant colour).
As a follow-up to our last post (June 29) showing the weed-strewn path in the village’s Parade Square garden, we are pleased to include a shot of phase one in its rehabilitation. This photo is taken from the same angle as the earlier post.
Slate stepping-stones are now in place and not a weed is to be seen in the path. Pruning and weeding the rest of the garden is scheduled for another day. For those wondering about the intriguing metal “sculpture”, it is an armillary sphere that was presented to the Garden Club years ago as a gift from two members who were summer visitors. Its rings of concentric circles indicate the relative position of the celestial spheres.
To round out this post, we are including a view of a section of Chester’s waterfront, as seen from the Parade Square looking west on one of the recent “cloudy with showers” days.