Wildflowers

Still camera-less so thought I would catch up on some of the things I meant to post this summer but never got round to. I know I'll be stating the blindingly obvious when I say that the midgefarm is not a manicured garden. The bonus of the untidiness is all the wonderful wildflowers that pop up.

Spring starts with banks of primroses on the first tier before even the azaleas are out.

Just as these start to fade, the bluebells in the grass above are reaching their prime. Of course this means I don't cut the grass (yippee) and there are daisies in abundance.

Then as the bluebells die back the foxgloves start waving for attention.

I have two grassy banks on the third tier. I have planted a blue ceanthus, a periwinkle and a pale yellow potentilla on the first bank. I had visions of the blue and pale yellow growing in a mix together. But nature put together a much prettier mix. This bank was covered in cuckoo flowers in spring which the orange tip butterflies loved. This slowly gave way to hawkweed, selfheal and clover. The bank was constantly buzzing with bumble bees and hoverflies and all sorts of grasshoppers singing. I think I may have to move my plants and let nature have her way.

There are other more secretive plants hiding in little clumps. This sweet forget-me-not lives on the second bank.

I didn't tidy the grass round this old tree stump as there was a speedwell looking very pretty growing through it.

And those are just the few photos I could find (my files are as tidy as my garden). There's so much more, several types of St John's wort, creeping Jenny, ferns, willows, hazels all unplanned but all very welcome.

Bright spots on a wet day

The weather has been appalling all weekend. Torrential showers and now it is windy as well. Despite this, the sun occasionally breaks through. I nipped out to get some fresh air during one short dry spell and saw this tired bumble bee on the Bidens golden star.







Some tomatoes are almost ripe, amazing given the lack of sunshine in the last week.
A self seeded lobelia. I planted some plugs last year but was disappointed by the lack of growth and flowers. They must have done enough however to leave seeds for this year. Maybe the butterflies will find it.