May 2025

end of May 2025

Black Ball cornflowers above, poppy with bee below

delphiniums with bees

first lupin flower spike

spiderwort starting to bloom

polemonium with a bee

hawk's-beard with bee

26-5-2025

I don't understand Crepis vesicaria. I had various self-seeding last year, forming rosettes, but none bloomed. They all bloomed this year. I now have a few that self-seeded this year and are blooming. Why are these flowering the same year but last year's took so long to bloom?

20-5-2025

The pyracantha has been in bloom and attracting lots of bees, I didn't realize how much bees liked it. In my last garden, not so much sun so not so many flowers. I heard it buzzing before I even saw the bees.

beaked hawk's-beard with bees

the cats have been enjoying the sun

poppies with buds

foxglove

Scilla peruviana

Verbena bonariensis

a cuckoo flower has appeared in my garden - never had one before (what No Mow May is all about)

base of the flower is so hairy bittercress-like - as both Cardamine, of course, never had one in my garden to examine closely

bloody cranesbill

Black Ball cornflower

16-5-2025

lots of buds in my garden and so many dandelion clocks flying around that one caught on some of the polemomium buds

a magnificent Centaurea montana, bees were on it at the garden centre when I was buying it yesterday - best recommendation a plant can have

Verbascum Arctic Summer

cornflower Black Ball

cornflower

scabious buds

Scilla peruviana

spiderwort

lupins repotted on top of the spent daffodils

sea holly buds forming on the sea holly I grew from seed last year

I love sea hollies so couldn't resist one from a local plant sale

I'm wondering if this is chicory, I didn't plant it in this pot but I did grow from seed last year, this is a lot greyer green than the bright green of the other plants

prickly sow thistle

lupin bud

poppy

oriental poppy bud

giant knapweed bud forming

wider view of entire giant knapweed plant

giant knapweed with a bud forming

giant scabious bud

6-5-2025

I just love green alkanet , an amazing number of flowers attractive to bees produced early with zero effort on my part.

 

The Crepis vesicaria are blooming - it's been a long wait from magnificent rosettes last year to flowers this spring. I have 20 in the garden, surprising from a tightly packed lawn.

stocks

lewisia

ceanothus at that magic time in spring when in full bloom

Yellow chamomile / golden marguerite (Cota tinctoria), I grew from seed, I planted some seedlings in the back garden and some in the front. These in the front have survived and seed to be developing buds but the ones in the back were savagely devoured by slugs.

I did find a couple of the Cota tinctoria surviving seedlings in the back garden in a pot

discovered this Crepis capillaris in a pot yesterday, I've had them in both the front and back garden

purple loosestrife seedlings

In trying to organize my many small pots with various self-seeders, I had these seedlings from different pots and thought they were the same species so I put them together in one small pot. I think they are purple loosestrife but will grow on to confirm.

some of my purple loosestrife plants

verbascum

fringecups, I found a small seedling, I used to have a lot in my last garden, thought I'd brought pots with me which had it

vetch

knautia

prickly sow thistle