Aster - Where have you been all my life?

I've not grown Aster before, more fool me. This is 'Little Carlow' and what a star. There's somewhere around three trillion (I counted) buds yet to burst open with their lavender bluey loveliness and, no mildew anywhere. Result.



It's flopping over the iron railings which is just fine by me. Flop all it wants on that side, I've supported it with twiggy bits on the other as it was menacing a Panicum 'Squaw' which, by the way, are also looking really good, but that's for another day.

I planted three Aster x frikartii 'Monch' in a new bit of garden I'm putting together. They'll take it dry, flower even earlier and have big ol' blooms. Should look beautiful next year.

100 Degree Day

The thermometre's nudging 39C today. That's a 103F and mighty hot. It was the same yesterday and will be similar tomorrow. Southern France sits under a plume of hot air, it's origin from the shores of north Africa via Spain. A Spanish plume.



These photos are of the Jardins de Cadiot which I posted about here. I particularly like the Amaranthus, so much so I bought a packet of Amaranthus Opopeo seed and I think I'll grow them for next year.

You may ask what relevance this has to a 100 degree day, not a lot really, except I'm sitting indoors right now, windows and shutters shut, keeping cool and messing around in my Picassa photo album, one eye on the Cricket on TV, England hammering India again, they're now the numero uno test side in the world. Again, completely irrelevant.

Mushroom Magic

There's a lot of mushrooms about at the moment. We've had some rain, but it's still warm and the increased humidity has bought a glut of Cepe, Orange de Bordeaux and all sorts of Boletus.



Some swear that you should aim to gather the much prized champignon sauvage during the first two phases of the moon as you'll have more success - who knows?

Collonges la Rouge is Red.

There's a vein of red sandstone that runs deep at the borders of the Dordogne, Correze and the Lot. Villages were built from it. Very beautiful villages too, of which Collonges la Rouge is the most.



With a history dating back to the eighth century, the early twentieth saw the formation of the association Les Amis de Collonges, "friends of Collonges" who obtained a historical monument classification for the entire village in 1942. By the way, if you reside in town, you are known as a Collongeois.




Listed as one of the Plus Beau Villages de France, It was the Mayor of Collonges, Charles Ceyrac who founded the association back in 1982, so the red village was in fact the first commune to be designated as such. The rest is history as they say.




The architecture is stunning, the atmosphere wonderful.



Turrets and towers, the stuff of fairytales.











And everthing is red.



Finally, this guy isn't trying to enter "rear of the year", he's sorting through crates of Cepes, that much sought after boletus, foraged first thing that morning.