I don't seem to have done a blog post on the garden at home for ages!
Climbing Hydrangea has put on a wonderful display this year. The flowers are covered in bumble bees, solitary bees, hoverflies and flies. Strangely we hadn't seen any butterflies on them until a Painted Lady appeared! You can see how much pollen the flowers produce from the top of the greenhouse!
I used to grow sweet peas every year but for some reason the last few years I haven't got round to it so this year I made a determined effort!
Years ago (over 45 years now!) when we first got married and bought the house B created a large vegetable plot and we also had a fruit cage at the top of the garden. We grew vegetables for years but once we had the children we found it was hard to find the time - not so much the growing but the freezing and making jams and chutneys. So B in the end turned the area into a wild flower meadow and mini woodland. I seem to remember I gave up making wine at the same time - it was just far too time consuming when you have a baby and a toddler to look after! In addition, I never managed to make wines as good as my father's were!
When we were last on the Isle of Wight (2018 I think) D was given a free tomato plant and this awakened an interest in growing vegetables especially when we had the first covid lockdown. So these days he grows a lot on the patio in pots and in the lean to greenhouse.
The pots in the centre contain cut and come again lettuce which is a brilliant thing to grow and in front we have radishes.
The first strawberries are forming.
Shallots, pumpkin/courgette and beetroot.
Garlic which was planted last autumn and which is nearly read to harvest, another pumpkin and courgette and two pollinator plants one of which is Borage.
In the green house ready to be potted on are a chilli pepper, sweet pepper, sweetcorn, aubergine and tomatoes plus sunflowers.
Looking forward to what flowers come up in this!
Lemon Balm - never grown it before!
An overgrown pond! Somewhere in there are Cuckoo Flowers, plus yellow irises and loads of Water Mint which the bees love.
Speckled Wood on Choisea.
Common Carder on Lavender
Sunflowers
Mint in its own pot!
Herb Pot - parsley actually survived the winter. The new addition is Golden Sage.
We were planning on going to Herefordshire this week. I really wanted to see the flowers in St Leonard's as they had a Flower Festival last weekend. But yet again I have gone down with cellulitis - I have been given some antibiotics but have been told to try not to take them unless it gets worse! I should try ibuprofen first to see if that helps bring down the inflammation. My last blood test revealed I am slightly anaemic which I think can cause recurring bouts of cellulitis. I have another blood test next Monday. I am glad now we made the effort to go out more in the last few weeks while I could walk!
Photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera except for the Painted Lady butterfly photo taken by D with the Canon SX50HS bridge camera. (I don't particularly rate my photos but if anyone wishes to use one of mine or my son's I would be grateful for an email first - thanks).
