I’ll spare you the ramblings about how fast the month has passed… It has, however been a strange old month, indeed a strange winter/spring! Heavy snow, then Snowdrops in January, next to no rain at all in April and now we’re well into our summer flowering plants with Roses breaking open already and Alliums filling the borders.
And on to the photos! Ok, so the borders are coming along nicely, although I do think perhaps I have sown seeds too late and ought to have done it earlier considering how quickly everything has been growing. Reality is, I couldn’t get it done due to Uni commitments. I now have lots of seedlings coming up in a couple of borders; next I need to sow some in the front garden too.
I have also noticed an incredible number of Bees around so far, most of which are all very small; and I believe to be mining Bees (sadly not the Blue ones I had last year), and I have seen very few Carder Bees so far, when normally they are one of the most common. I think perhaps the sharp increase in these small mining Bees is due to me providing them a log and soil pile, I hope it’ll also attract plenty of Beetles.
Another photo of this lovely Aquilegia again…
Geraniums in the front garden are flowering, just waiting for Wargrave Pink to bloom in the background, normally these two bloom together… Been a strange old spring this year!
Centurea is also getting ready to bloom, the Bees love it.
A plant I got to go in the hanging basket… Sorry I don’t remember its name now… Very pretty though!
The Bluebells are stunning as always and they’re bulking up nicely; it’s taken them around 3 years to finally begin naturalising and we’re getting numerous stems from the one original bulb.
Wheeeee, Clematis Marjorie is opening! She’s doing very well this year, I have way more blooms on her and lots of nice fresh growth.
Roseraie De L’hay will not be long, I cannot wait for her blooms… The perfume is so amazing and flowers are huge.
The Sweet Rocket won’t be much longer either, this is the first year I’ve grown it and can’t wait to see what its blooms will look like.
I really love this self-seeded Aquilegia, its colour works very nicely with the Alliums too – and it’s almost the same height!
Allium ‘purple sensation’ or ‘aflentense’ just breaking through its skin
This one doesn’t appear to be getting much pigment, I wonder if they sent me a white one by accident…
And now we’ll move onto wider views of the borders… be warned, some are not so pretty, but then that’s the point! They’re works in progress.
The cherry border, I’ve done so much here… you would not believe how much different it looks compared to last year. I need to work on the year-long interest, and the right side was only recently opened up further with the removal of a Clematis. And in its place I planted Foxgloves, Dicentra, Primula and Hellebores. I also have Foamflower and a new Fern to add.
This is an area I’m struggling to get to, what you can’t see is the pile of concrete posts and wood in front of it! As you can see the Dandelions are having a great time… You might be able make out the little Fuji Cherry that was pretty much killed by workmen, it does still have some branches though and may recover from its beating, I bought another one anyway and may plant it next to it.
This is the ‘new’ border – really need to think of a name for it… It isn’t new anymore! So far things are growing very well. The Asters are already quite tall…
And here’s a few slight further to the left and you can see another lovely pile of concrete posts and wood… I have to be very selective with my photos!
Monkshood looks well on its way, the border behind needs lots of work done to it but right now it’ll have to wait until I have the spare time.
These seedlings have ended up clumped together, I only sowed them the day before we got all that rain, so I think it washed them all together… Lol, this is going to be fun!
And the Forget-me-nots, see the seedlings to the bottom left of the Blue one?
And we’ll finish with some more Alliums… Plenty of them to see!
And another selective shot, where the dead Rosemary bush is revealed in the background…
Actually, this border is going to be a let-down this year, two Foxgloves have died plus one of my Black Hollyhocks and it also looks like the larger one, which was growing has given up… So I need to find something else to plant in their places. I do have black Hollyhock seedlings, which I hope will flower this year (they were started last year) in the other side of the border but the plan was for them to even it out by repeating the Black… Soooooooo, urm…. Yeah, I’ll have to think/find something else!
