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High summer and the garden is buzzing.

I must be doing something right. Treading carefully around the borders with camera in hand there were times when I braced myself ready for the sting. But the bees are just too busy to worry about the humble photographer. This one was well and truly stuck in.

 
 

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Stronger colours are coming to the fore now, even in the harsh midday sun

 
 

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Agapanthus ‘Indigo Dreams’. An inherited hydrangea and the ubiquitous croscosmia.

 

Many will recall my ongoing battle with crocosmia and the rising resentment of it as the years have gone by. It has wheedled itself into each and every corner. Corms have found their way underneath the chicken wire on the bank and grown to such an extent that it is now almost impossible to extract them via the holes in the mesh.

But wait. Before I got to the stage of chucking them all into bin liners bound for the dump I planted just a small clump of crocosmia at the top end of the bank..

 
 

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.. where I may have to admit they look rather good

If only it was in their nature to behave, containing themselves in that nicely rounded clump.

 
 

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Agapanthus ‘Zachary’

But it’s the blues that are doing it for me most at the moment with agapanthus enjoying a particularly good year. I must have taken over 30 shots of ‘Zachary’, in sun, in shade, from every direction, in a vain attempt to capture the intensity of colour. The blooms are of a truly electric blue.

 
 

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An ambidextrous hydrangea

It started life on the terraces but had really overgrown its position there. A year or two back we shifted it, with a fair amount of sweat and tears and very little ceremony, up to a more spacious abode on the woodland edge. Clearly it is now in the process of adjusting to soil rich in leaf mould and decidedly more acidic. Each year its blooms progress toward a truer blue.

 
 

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Rose ‘Alpine Sunset’

The roses have done less well overall. They were fabulous in June but since then the weather has turned. It’s been cool and wet, the remaining flowers balled and turned brown and only now are we seeing a few more tentative buds.

 
 

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The best of the bunch at present.. possibly Rosa ‘Bonica’?

 
 

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Verbena rigida, seed heads from Peony ‘Bowl of Beauty’ and Pennisetum ‘Karley Rose’

My new found love of prairie planting has found its way on to the terraces too.

 
 

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Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Orange Field’

 
 

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Primula florindae

Just look at the colour of those blooms, vibrant orange on the outside of the petals, creamy apricot within. Gorgeous. I haven’t yet had the heart to plant it out and leave it to the mercy of the wild.

 
 

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Lysimachia punctata ‘Alexander’ and Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’

But what’s that in the background? Surely it can’t be.. not here. Not when I’ve said they are impossible for me to grow and whenever I try the slugs gobble up the lot?

 
 

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Echinacea ‘Sundown’

Let’s be very clear here. We’re not talking about resplendent drifts of blooms. There are three.

 
 

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Sedum spurium

 
 

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Erigeron karvinskianus

Last autumn Em from Dartmoor Ramblings (here) sent me some Erigeron seed harvested from her mother’s garden. It germinated almost immediately and I’ve distributed the resultant young plants far and wide. I really love the airy effect they’ve created in this urn.

 
 

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Cosmos ‘Purity’ amidst hardy shrubby fuchsias

Returning full circle to the location of the busy bee at the top of the post. Bees and blooms. Today even the sun is out. Ahhh… summer. Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts.

 
 

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Buzz buzz…

 
 
 

Linking to Carol and Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens (here), where you will find many other August bloomers from around the world.

 

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Techie update: I’m cautiously optimistic that our problems with internet access have finally been resolved.

It’s good to be back.

 
 
 
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