August 2017

last week of August, I have a second flush of flowers from the scabious, both purple:

and white:

passionflower:

the morning glory are really just getting into their stride

the cyclamen coum is blooming and the slugs haven't eaten every bit yet

I find it very difficult to dig up plants - even if it's for the greater good. This flowerbed was overwhelmed with green alkanet, which the bees and I love but enough is enough. I'm going to try to keep just this small area free of green alkanet and let the fox and cubs, centaurea montana and the dierama I just planted to grow. That lavender pot was blocking light was well so I'm moving that.

I removed the green alkanet seedlings and hope the fox and cubs seedlings in the middle will have a chance next year. They didn't this year. The lower left corner are my centaurea montana.

the garden is looking dry and sparse but Victor isn't too bothered, so much bloomed early because of the hot dry weather

in looking at the pots more carefully I see a small red unexpected poppy

a close-up of that

there's a new nasturtium in bloom and in looking at it I see a tiny viola has appeared

a close-up of that viola

I noticed another tiny viola had appeared

purple morning glory flowers appearing daily (they only last a day)

closer view of that lupin, that plant has had a number of smaller flower spikes, keeping the pot off the ground to keep them away from the slugs that love them

the crocosima Lucifer are finished and I thought these smaller ones were as well but a few late flowers have appeared

the Michaelmas Daisies are early this year, I presume because of the hot dry weather

they are growing around the Chinese Lanterns

the Chinese Lanterns are early as well, I already have orange lanterns, as well as green ones (which will turn orange) and flowers (which will turn into lanterns)

another greater knapweed flower

Japanese anemone, doing really well this August

lots of buds

and lots of flowers

this one small viola has had lots of flowers (I grew from seed and it has nothing to do with the "Pansy" pot behind from the garden centre which I'm just reusing, would have moved it if I realised it would be in the pic)

it's a bit sprawling

this pot had a foxglove crowding out the hosta so I removed it, now it has a teasel doing the same thing, with lots of water it has grown enormous in a very short space of time

Emilia javanica Irish Poet, the seed packet makes them look neat and upright

but instead they are sprawling and very small flowers relative to the size and number of leaves

I noticed these caterpillars on the under a nasturtium leaf.

a close-up of them and googling reveals them to be caterpillars of the cabbage white butterfly