garden shots

I'm posting this phot a bit late as this show of flowers has been over for a couple of weeks. It's my Clematis Montana and it brightened the view out of my kitchen window.

One of the Alium Christophii in my front garden which my friend named the lollipop garden what with the aliums and the valerian.

I don't know what this butterfly is called or even if it's a moth. It seemed to like my lemon balm.

This climbing rose was already in my garden when I moved in and it smells heavenly. I followed the advice on gardeners world and bent the shoots horizontally as it encourages loads of new shoots all fighting for lateral dominance and therefore loads more roses. I wanted the white roses to weave through more with the Potato climber(Solanum) but I think I should have done it earlier as they seem to have minds of their own.

Garden shots

I don't know the name of this flower but it looks like some sort of daisy. It's rising out of a cushion of Euphorbia.








Rhododendron









The first rose of this year - it smells heavenly









One of my salvias - the leaves smell like black currant -gorgeous.








Epimedium - these love shade. The leaves gain and lose red durung the year. I love watching them change.

Clematis montana that has carpeted my fence (will post photo of the whole length of it soon) and orange honeysuckle.

Erythronium - so delicately beautiful. Shade loving. They don't last long but they are worth it.

And finally yippee the peonia that my Mum gave me from her garden that I moved to our flat and then to this house but this is the first year it's flowered here. All previous years the buds were black and dropped off. Hoorah! My five year old daughter took this photo.

Urghhhh

Friday wasn't a really bad day but it started off not too well. First the Conservatives have ousted Labour in my area. Then I logged onto my emails and the Festival Latitude that I was about to book tickets for emailed me saying they had sold out. Am trying not to kick myself too hard but I have been stalking this festival for some time and had childcare confirmed ages ago. I was just waiting for our finances to brighten. Who was I kidding? Then my son flung himself on the floor and cried saying he doesn't want to do Big Write and cried all the way to school. Fridays he has multiplication and spelling tests and Big write - no wonder he never wants to go in on a Friday.

On the plus side BNP lost all their seats in Dagenham and Barking. My friend Tina came to visit - she always makes me laugh. I said -do you think kids age you or keep you young and she said -both, it's the keeping you young that ages you. Then I went to Rag to Riches fundraiser where I bought two beautiful cardigans (one emerald and the other moss green and a top) and had lovely cocktails and chats. People have so many stories locked inside them.

What kind of Friday did you have?