Summer Flowers

We're back from our travels. I'll tell you all about our holiday in my next post but in the meantime I'd like to share some beautiful blooms from my garden. These were taken before our holiday but I just didn't get round to posting about them before we left so I thought I'd do that now.

The star of my summer garden is the astrantia. I just love these flowers, like little pin cushions. These plants come in white or cream and shades from the palest pink through to the deepest purple. I just love the white ones. I don't give them much attention, they care for themselves and reward me with these beautiful flowers.

After experiencing the scent of daphne when we went In Search Of Snowdrops at Dunham Massey earlier this year, I couldn't resist buying a plant for the garden. Many varieties flower from late winter to late spring but I did a bit of research and came up with Pink Fragrance which has a long flowering season, often from April to October. This is the plant in June, the scent is divine. I've planted this in a container so it can be enjoyed on the patio.

I always plant scarlet geraniums at each side of my back door. The intense red of the flowers are set off by the tall blue glazed pots I plant them in. This one was an extra I had no room for so it was popped in a different pot and displayed with some of my other potted plants. The colour is doing weird things to my camera, most likely because it's so vivid.

Peonies can be quite temperamental when it comes to them being moved, they can die but even if they live, they may not flower for a year or two afterwards, so I was surprised that after moving my peony in the autumn it has rewarded me with not one but quite a few blooms this year. No sulking from being transplanted at all.

I have a plant stand on the patio where I display lots of little different pots of flowers. This one is erodium Bishops Form and it flowers all summer long. You can see the little hedgehog pot hanger hanging onto the side which my friend Maggie from Needles, Greens and Everyday Things bought me in my Twelve Day Advent.

Another from the plant stand is this alchemilla Connoisseurs Choice. A cousin to the more common Alchemilla Mollis, this one is a dwarf variety and slow growing. Ideal for a small pot or container.

Just a few of the things I have growing in my garden, it's a joy to see things flowering throughout the different seasons, though we returned to absolute carnage, the sun and heat has done its worst and many things have suffered. We're now trying to nurture everything back to health. Time will tell if we succeed.