Good morning from a cloudy North East Wales. We’ve had showers overnight, and are forecast more through the day, but I have no gardening planned as I spent a morning last week removing the dead and dying astilbes and chopping back iris leaves that you can see in the first image of the front border. I didn’t manage to do it all, so that’s a job for next week. Meanwhile here are my Six for Saturday.

Allium ‘Drumstick’ is still doing it’s thing and is proving a great talking point. With all the other alliums failing to put in an appearance this year, I will be buying more of these, and splitting this patch into two.

Not sure what these are – possibly mallows of some kind – but they add new interest to my two large pots on the patio. If only I could get these wildflower seeds to germinate in the front border, I would be a happy gardener.

Bees enjoying a pink cornflower

The banana ‘pup’ my brother gave me has been enjoying the heat from two weeks ago and is producing more leaves. Although this is banana musa Basjoo, I keep calling it Banjoo!

9 July
24 July

The shady area by compost corner. Heuchera ‘Marmalade’ and a much healthier looking heuchera ‘Berry Smoothie’.

The troughs are perking up with the rain. Both planted at the same time, the one that is in a slightly sunnier position is doing better. I’ve swapped them around.

Technically, I now have a two-week summer break from my studies at the Open University, but I won’t be taking it as there are now only 59 days to the deadline for handing in our final project. I am trying to get as much written as possible, and definitely half again of the expected 15,000 words, then I can spend time editing, refining, and re-writing.

That’s the plan!

Enjoy your weekend, and take time to smell the roses (or other floral offerings of choice).