garden withoutdoors

Things are finally happening in the garden withoutdoors after this cold cold weather.

I actually have a few pots of flowers to put on these shelves. The idea was to have some on each level but things have been a bit slow in the garden.

My mahonia has a lot of flowers and the scent is intoxicating. To the left in the photo below are a few of the bergenia but there are many of those as well. These are two great flowers for late winter/early spring colour.

Pussycat

It eventually got hot enough for the water lillies to bloom. This was the beginning of August. The green alkanet is still in bloom. Here's my Pussycat outside next door looking exquisite as always.

This has been quite a poor plant for about 3 years now. It currently has 1 flower. I haven't noticed any other flowers this year. In contrast, my other geranium is covered with flowers.

I thought these might be crocosima so moved them to have some more sun as they hadn't bloomed but then they didn't bloom and I figured they must be something else. This year they've suddenly started to bloom and they are indeed crocosima.

I like teasels although they can be considered a weed, they are also considered wildflowers.  I've never seen a bird on one eating the seeds even though I've read they like them.

A few years ago I planted about 5 different thistles with variable results, mostly disappointing but 1 enormous cotton thistle (in the front garden) which was great. Since then I haven't seen any of the thistles until this suddenly appeared in the back garden. 

It's not nearly as tall as the first cotton thistle I grew.

This vipers bugloss appeared in the front garden a few years after planting them in the back garden.

Pussycat likes to go next door and spend time with my neighbour.

Unlike the previous flowers, these neon violet pansies I actually planted this year in March.

The front garden has grown quite lush after all this rain.

I noticed this tiny tiny moth the other day sitting on a white foxglove just as I happened to be in the garden with my camera. I think it's a mint moth (if my google searches were successful).

It's warm enough for the zantedeschia to bloom. This one is in the pond. I've just been reading about how they need winter protection but I've never provided that for mine. Things need to be as tough as old boots to survive in my garden and this plant has done just fine. It was one of my best buys as it was on special at B+Q a few years ago and is still going strong.

These photos are quite similar but I just couldn't decide which was better!

It's easy to get blasé about aquilegias as they self-seed around the garden and I've never bought seeds or a plant but they really are exquisite flowers.

I'm rather surprised to see both pansy and viola flowers reverting to a similar colour and happening on existing plants rather than self-seeded ones.

These were supposed to be a black pansy, Blackjack (I actually labelled these properly when I planted them last year - sometimes I forget).

These were Viola Floral Powers although I'm not sure if they were an existing plant or a self-seeded one that grew wholly this year.

I now know that the Chiltern Seeds pansies that I complained to them about that were not the colours they were supposed to be had all reverted to a similar colour. Surely they must have recognised that. I didn't know about colour reversion at the time.

I was surprised to see this iris flower today. It self-seeded and I hadn't even noticed the plant until it bloomed. But what a boring flower. It's brown! These iris foetidissima have a way of blending into the background and being completely unnoticed - until the seed pods burst open to reveal bright orange seeds. Their other redeeming quality is that they'll grow and bloom anywhere, sun or shade; tough as old boots.

This hydrangea is also pretty tough and doing well in semi-shade.