flower power

the front garden beds

Our summer garden is full of flowers at the moment: no wonder the beehives are filled to the brim with worker bees and honey. 

Butterflies and hoverflies are enjoying the 'nectarfest' too: meadow browns, green veined and large whites and red admirals were all evident today.

Throughout the garden we have chosen simple flowers as these are the ones that pollinating insects find easiest to access for their pollen and nectar.

Hot colours with vivid scarlet 'Lucifer' 

In the pictured front garden beds we have a froth of alchemilla mollis, allium sphaerocephalon and geranium 'Rozanne'. Bumble bees hug the Rozanne flowers, burying their faces as a child would do a well-loved teddy. The alchemilla mollis also cunningly hides the sometimes untidy allium foliage. And the head gardener has made sure that geraniums are everywhere. Insects love their flowers and the plants hum with busy bumble bee workers as the gardens of our childhood would once have done.

Our south facing terrace was so hot yesterday that our family of ducklings couldn't step out of the shade of the table as the paving slabs were too hot for their little feet. The hotness is added to by the reds, yellows and oranges of the 'hot border' - scarlet crocosmia 'Lucifer'  is matched in colour by the ivy-leaf geraniums 'Ruby' in their terracotta pots. Of course, these 'geraniums' are truly another plant species entirely - pelargoniums. They need little care or water due to their waxy, thick leaves so get a big sustainability tick. I love 'em but sadly, they are plants that insects do not seek out: for decorative purposes only.

'Phoebe's Border': a paradise for bees

When Phoebe (aged 18 months) arrived in her booster seat, she looked out of the car window at the ground covered as it was then with weed suppressing black plastic weighed down with pallets, tyres and bricks - and pronounced 'Rubbish'. She was being descriptive rather than critical. But still, it hurt.
Stung by this toddler attack, the bed became a priority and is now chock full of the simple flowers of salvias and geraniums 'Rebecca Moss' and 'Patricia' and veronica longifolia. In her honour, it is now 'Phoebe's Border'

The closely planted nature of our garden means that there is lots of cover for ground animals.
Our mollusc friends are doing exceptionally well this year. As a result we now have very few dahlias and and no lupins due to the voracious, rasping mouthparts of the masses of slugs and snails that now call our garden home.

Our family of mallard ducklings should be effective slug eaters. Unfortunately, the ducklings are tucked up by the time the slithery, slimy enemy emerges. And try as I might, I have yet to locate tiny, duckling size head torches to aid their nocturnal search.