Mixed Blessings

As white as milk,
And not milk;
As green as grass,
And not grass;
As red as blood,
And not blood;
As black as soot,
And not soot.

"Have you noticed that the blackberries are flowering?" asks Lady Mondegreen.  There is quite a lot I'm not noticing in the garden these days, like the first umbel of florets on the climbing hydrangea. After ten years of coaxing the plant out of long grass and up the walnut tree it is now living up to its name.  This spring I found the first tiny green buds and showed them to Elwin, who had been watching them develop with me.  But now I hardly have time to pay indulgent attention to the garden as the business of estate affairs has taken over. 
The blackberries - one of this garden's wild things - grow wherever there is protection from Me. In hedgerows, under overgrown shrubberies, in wood piles... And now they are flowering; their dainty, hovering white cups belying their vicious brambles, and promising a juicy feast.

Blackberry, bramble  Rubus fruticosus
Climbing hydrangea  Hydrangea petiolaris