It was like a scene from High Noon, a confrontation between the inhabitants of the two top huts. There on my left stood 5 girls with Winnie, the biggest, in front, and up from my right stepped the alpha male Jay-Z leading a few of his followers...... No, there was no shoot-out, amazingly all was quiet as soon as Jay-Z had chased those 5 girls into the enclosure and he thought his duty had been done .....
While filling up a large blue Ikea bag with weeds yesterday I suddenly saw a bee crawling along the edge of the bag, falling off, climbing up again, sliding off - obviously drunk. I let it crawl on my secateurs and placed it on one of the drumhead alliums they like so much, and I'm really pleased with this shot I got of it:
Encouraged by this success I tried to "capture" a few more of the seeming hundreds of bees and butterflies swarming all over the flowering oregano and alliums, none of them turned out as well.
There are several other things flowering at present which give me lots of pleasure. Last November I had bare root roses sent from Rosen Tantau in the north of Germany, and three of them have been blooming for a while:
Cherry Brandy Artemis
The red Barkarole is growing tall but has no buds yet. How are yours doing, Gerd - or should I ask Maria?
My huge favourite of the 10 roses Michael and Peaneh sent me a couple of years ago from the same rose growers is the fragrant Elfe, who is now giving a great show in front of the sun lounge and near the greenhouses:
Lots of my presents from Gerd and Maria are doing very well, too, these are three of them:
The Ceanothus is flowering for the first time.
The Leycesteria Formosa is choc-a-bloc with these lovely dangling bracts:
The Ligularia, about to flower.
The little patch in the long border where I like to see a bit of red colour has had an injection of it by the Crocosmia Lucifer, I love it!
In the sun lounge the orchid from G&M is continuing to open flower after flower, photos from 11.7., to 21.7., to 28.7.
Only one of my many presents is worrying me, the gorgeous Sparmannia Africana which looked resplendent in October 2011 started showing signs of decay early last year, and although it flowered, the decay went on. The stems were turning black at the base, that blackness crept up the stems and all the leaves wilted. We cut off all affected stems, rooted two cuttings [which later died as well], and managed to save two stems which looked healthy and thrived for a while. Now today I noticed the leaves wilting again - in spite of careful watering of the plant - and the base of the two stems have started to turn black, I'm heartbroken.
Luckily my lovely brother sent me not only this beautiful plant but also a packet of seeds of the same, so hopefully John will succeed in growing me new plants from those!
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