Garden Smiles: After Storm Hector..

Hello Honeys,
Well we survived Storm Hector, with its 70 miles per hour winds and heavy rain.  In the garden we lost a few precious roses but the new fence, which Hubby completed during his recent holiday from work, is still standing.

After past storms he would usually have been outside looking at the wreckage of a fence, and facing days of work repairing it, but thankfully now that he's lowered the height and allowed for those 2-3 times a year storm winds by leaving a slight gap between each of the fence panels to allow the winds to flow through, the fence should (touch wood) survive any other pesky storms in the future.   

I really do feel blessed honeys, with all of the damage reportedly caused by storm Hector, that all we lost this time were a few roses.  The rose shrubs are still standing, there are still pretty roses in bud and I know they'll bloom soon.  As with the limited damage in the back garden, we've been very lucky this time around and I'm so grateful.


As you can see on the ground beneath the rose shrub honeys, some roses have been torn away from their branches, and the branches themselves have been thrown around so that they're now sitting very messily.

The back garden seems to have been hit hardest as always but even there it's more a case of clearing away fallen leaves and snapped branches from the nearby trees.

 As usual most of the mess to be cleared is around the side of the garden but this usually happens, our garden, sited as it is at the very top of a cul de sac, turns into a sort of wind sock on windy days, with the wind picking up leaves and anything else and sweeping it around to the side of the house.

Enough of messy gardens honeys.  We need some smiles instead, so I thought I'd share some photos I'd taken in the garden before storm Hector arrived and hadn't posted here yet.  Let's start with this one...

We planted this rose shrub so many years ago now, in memory of my dear, sweet Gramma, she adored roses.  Every year it blooms and every year the roses are more beautiful than the last.

Do you remember our secret rose honeys?  If not you can see (and read about it) here.  It was the most perfect rose that appeared unexpectedly when I was tidying our tiny front garden.  It had been growing happily, hidden from view until it was discovered and I've looked forward to seeing it ever since.

Well, this year it's back again and isn't it perfect...
 

Imagine our surprise though honeys when this year there were two roses instead of one?

Neither of these two lovely roses have been harmed by the storm either which is wonderful.

As I said though (and you can see below) the strong winds and very heavy rain have thrown our largest, and oldest, rose shrub around and made it considerably more untidy.  Lots of the branches are now leaning over towards the fence instead of standing tall as they always do...

Again honeys, I feel so lucky that the damage was so limited.  This is, I think, the least damage we've had from a storm in all the time we've lived here. Mostly, I'm sure, due to Hubby's completing his project of lowering the incredibly high fence built around the back garden by the previous owners.

I hope if you were affected by storm Hector that any damage was limited too honeys.  In the end though, it's all stuff at the end of the day.  Even our precious roses.  So long as our loved ones are safe we can tidy up and re-build things.  These storms do seem to have been more frequent these past few years and it's worrying.

Well, I have to go get organised for work dear ones, so till next time, have a wonderful weekend, smile lots and hug even more 😊 Huggles always xx