A Wet Weekend Wander Around My Garden

Morning!

Welcome to my second post - and this morning it's from a very drizzly Devon - not that I mind the rain today. It has been days, perhaps even a full week of very warm weather and lots of sunshine. Really lovely to get out and about after work in the evenings, but not so great for my poor garden. It's looking beautiful out there at the moment- everything is growing hell-for-leather, but is desperate for this drop of rain. Of course I've been busy watering it every evening, but I have to admit that I'm slightly dreading our next water bill!

It's always worth it when you see the exquisite colours of all the different flowers though. My favourite roses are blooming at the moment. We've got a couple of gorgeous David Austin varieties- one is a beautiful apricot orange, with a heavenly citrus scent, and the other is a deep, dark pink, with a heavy "old fashioned" perfume. The wisteria has finished flowering for the year, but it's wall-buddy, the wild honey-suckle is out in full force, and in this damp weather, it smells gorgeous.

The hollyhock has shot up - I reckon it's almost 8 ft tall at the moment. It hasn't started flowering yet, but if it's true to its parent plant I took the seeds from a couple of years ago, it should flower a deep pinkish-red. We also have a whole swathe of Campanula (Canterbury Bells) this year. I'm really excited about these, as the parent plant I took the seeds from last year was pure white, but this year we have a lovely mix of white and the softest lavender-blue.

Then there's this insane peony whose flowers are about the same size as my head. I'm enjoying this as much as possible because the flowers hate getting wet - they act a bit like a giant sponge when it rains - and rot off pretty quickly. But that's one of the lessons of the garden - you have to enjoy each day for what it is.

Right - one last thing before I sign off - something I'm so excited about. We've recently been eating a whole load of basil- just the raw leaves on top of pasta and in salads and sandwiches. But- and this is a very big but for me- sometimes we can get English-grow in the local shops, but sometimes it's from as far afield as Jordan. As someone who cares deeply for the environment, I just can't condone the amount of air-miles for something that can easily be produced in this country. So I've planted my own - one tub of purple basil and one of green. And last night, just as I arrived home from work, I noticed that they've germinated. You can just see the little 2-leaved seedlings showing their little heads here.

I'll leave you with this last pic of our everlasting sweet-peas which the bumblebees are going nuts for right now. They come back every single year and are just the mos beautiful colour. I've grown them up a bamboo wigwam again this year, but next year I might try to experiment with some kind of arch of them across the house, as they seem to grow to fill the space available to them!

What are your favourite plants to grow? Let me know in the comments - and if you enjoyed this post, of course I'd love an upvote.

Happy weekend Steemians,
Eveningart x