After a week of rain and low temperatures, Wednesday was an in-between day. It started rainy, chilly and extremely windy, and ended sunny, and then suddenly a massive rainshower and sunny again. Our weather is all over the place...Because today, Friday, it was 20°C at 05.33 (I know, 'cause Puck told me she needed walkies NOW), and it is expected to reach 32° by the afternoon. Followed by a massive thunderstorm, so I need to get my planters down from the railings of the balcony.
My neighbour took precautions and cut off all his Peonies, but had overlooked this one. It was hiding itself on my side of the plot.
Meanwhile that wind was strafing my plants. Okay, everything is now green instead of parched, but wind dries out plants too, so I still have to water the pots! I took Puck, never a good idea, she is not a natural gardener.
The dominant colour is green at the moment, as most plants are not at the flowering stage, and the spring blooms have finished. But my fern has survived, which is great.
This Lily is still going strong.
And so is Schneewitchen. The other three roses have finished, but I know they will get a second blooming.
And suddenly the perennial Lathyrus has taken off. It is Lathyrus Latifolius 'Pink Pearl', and did nothing since I planted it two months ago. But now it is growing, yay! It has competition from the grape next to it. Not ideal, but I thought that grape had vanished.
I think this photo illustrates the prairy feeling of the back of my garden, next to the compost heaps. There Salvias and Phlomis compete with tall grasses that have blown in from the verge on the other side of the ditch. I see the majority of insects in this part of the garden, so I leave the grasses and only weed if absolutely necessary.
Another plant I thought had perished: my yellow Digitalis grandiflora. It is there, hurray!
It is hard to believe that Pinus on the left was only 15cm high 4 years ago. It is taller than me now, more than 1.70cm. In a year or so it will have outgrown the Artichokes. They took a real battering this week, lots of their fronds have wind damage.
Talking about that...half of my apples have blown down.
One of the many Ladybirds on the Artichokes. This is an exotic, and not many of our native ones are around I'm sad to say.
This is it. The Fourteen-spot Ladybird. In future I'll look differently on my Artichoke guests, I can tell you!
Puck is pretending she hasn't spotted the three ripe Strawberries, but as soon as my back is turned, she will steal them.
Have a good weekend wherever you are!
Renée Grashoff
