ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW

With it being such a rainy day yesterday I spent a little time sorting through the garden photos I'd taken during the week...this time of year there's hardly a day goes by when there's not a plant that has newly come into flower or is reaching its optimum best so I'm always clicking away with my camera.

Madagascan Honeysuckle....grown from seed...now in its 4th year

Houttuynia cordata 'Chameleon' .....flowering well, great leaf colour, leaves smell of oranges when rubbed

the front garden is filling up...............the wind really whistles around the corner and I was glad to see that after the recent storms and high winds everything was still in one piece; though the basket and the manager on the wall took a bit of a battering.




First hardy fuchsia in flower

I like the way this area of the garden is taking off; the hardy fuchsias add some colour to an area that gets no sun.
I use a lot of annual lobelia of all different colours in the garden; it's great for filling gaps and adding softness to hard landscaping
it's the first year I've tried this variety...I like the blue and white stripe effect
the Alstromeria have started flowering...this is a seedling of an original plant we had many years ago
this pink one is a dwarf variety and much more manageable in a small garden

This bedding begonia has come up trumps again this year (the white and deep red ones are still in bud)...I save the corms from year to year


the same as I do with the trailing begoniasI had a feeling the Lacecap Hydrangea was going to be white this year but after a few acid feeds it's starting to turn blue
my Japanese ferns are starting to look better now; far more colour differentiation in the leaves this year
the Lantana are doing well though not getting very big...I particularly like this one...the flowers come out yellow and gradually turn pink
this hardy geranium is so sweet; I love the leaf colour and the small pink striped blooms

both colours of Callas are out now..................




and last, but by no means least, a very important plant close to my heart has started to flower. This Star Jasmine 'Trachelospermum jasminoides' was the last plant that Mick and I bought in 2005 when he was still able to drive and to comprehend and remember what we were doing. It was a plant we had always wanted and just before he fell ill we went to Colne Nurseries to look for one as a present for ourselves. There were none on show and so we asked one of the chaps who worked there if they were getting any more in stock. The chap went to the Nursery greenhouse and found that they had just the one......some things are meant to be......

P.S. Shaz joked in the comment box of my Longest Day post that it would soon be Christmas....well the weather for next week is "turning decidedly Autumnal" (quote from our local TV news)..with daytime temperatures 13C at the most dropping to 7C at night.....only a couple of degrees lower than that and the "F" (frost) word will be bandied about......I really hope they're wrong......IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE SUMMER!!!!!!