June Garden Update

It been a rather strange year weather wise...and over the last few days we have had some torrential downpours, where within ten minutes our patio has been under water, but ten minutes after it has stopped raining, everything is clear again.  We have had hail too, and some of the delicate blooms are battered and bruised.

Starting at the bottom of the garden in the shady area, I've left the wild yellow poppies to do their thing.  They start to flower early in the season, and the bees love them.

Just up from the gazebo the Valeriana Officinalis is in full bloom, and the scent fills the garden.

The flowers are perfumed and stand above the other plants on their tall wiry stems.  Close up, you can not only appreciate their beauty but the complexity of their structure.

The roses are doing particularly well this year.  Ghislaine de Feligonde

Princess Anne with its lovely glossy and healthy leaves, somewhat overwhelmed by the Astrantia.  Once it has finished flowering, I shall be splitting it up, and replanting as as to give the rose a little more space.

Grace, which having first been grown in a pot for two years, is not spending her third year in the garden, surrounded by love in the mist!

and Munstead Wood with its glorious maroon many petaled blooms:

The climbing rose are all doing well but need to be tied back and have their summer prune ready for the next flush of flowers.

This is a plant given to me by my friend Diane last year: Stachys Byzantina or Lamb's ears, and it is just coming into flower

I bought a collection of Penstemons last year, but this is one I was given by the Handyman at my last place of work.  It flowers its socks off each year, however hard I cut it.

I've had two superb foxgloves in the garden this year, and most likely there are big bumble bees visiting in between all the showers, or even taking refuge in the blooms:

I love this pale pink poppy.  I got it from Waitrose last year but I think the label is somewhere in the garden.

After flowering early on the year, the Fothergilla gardenii Blue Mist is living up to its name with its lovely blue green leaves:

In this pot I have collected some offshoots of some little plants and they are coming on nicely:

In the front of one border, I'm pleased to see that the Hardy Fuchia Tom West is showing some pretty colours.  I shall be taking some cuttings of this.  Over the years I seem to like one plant over another, and this year I have increased my little collection of Hardy Fuchias, after a talk at the gardening club.

I'm growing them in pots this year, and love the way the light shows up the stems on this one: