Whats Looking Good JUNE 2025

Yes, but its only for a couple of days, certainly brings in the the pollinators even if most are flies.

 

The first clematis that has tolerated me!

 

The garden is currently at its best. Everything flowers that can flower. For some years now, I concentrate on June because we get hardly rain in July and August. There will be Echinacea and Helenium ready later on. I have the first Echinacea flower developing.
While sitting in the garden yesterday, I noticed once more this Spring how many bees and insect are there this year. The Deutzia shrubs and plants like Scabiosa are covered with them. I also saw a Peacock butterfly, something that is rare in our area.

The grasses are from one plant that I bought in 2022. I had split this plant into two and it is in full glory this year.



This corner in my old bed with Deutzia and Hardy Geranium is covered with white tail bees this year. When sitting on that end, I counted at least 10 if not more bees.







This makes me happy and I can't ask for more. This is the best display since 2021.
The Astrantia and Hardy Geranium on the right, bought last year are flowering. The middle section is flowering with several Salvia plants, Scarbiosa, Achillea, Foxgloves and Deutzia. My old bed with Deutzia, Astrantia and Hardy Geraniums is flowering and the Spirea in the 'Japanese' bed has grown a lot this year and is flowering together with Hardy Geraniums which I had taken out from my overcrowded old bed. The garden is currently a huge flowerbed that makes nature and me happy. Enjoy while it lasts, it will be soon over.

 

Freesias. Very pretty but sadly no detectable scent. Attracting plenty of insects though - the hoverflies are particularly keen on yellow flowers.



The first scabious flower to open, and a bee was sound asleep on it.


Fuschia "Mrs Popple" flowering in the shadiest part of the garden

 

Thunbergia with Hakonechloa aureola.



Lady of Shalott.



Tree fern.



Erigeron karvinskianus with E. glaucus Sea Breeze Mauve.

 

View from the house

 

Scabiosa rumelica


Salvia greggii "Raspberry Ripple"


Aloiampelos striatula


Lavender


Different Lavender


Verbascum chiaxii


Heliantheum "Henfield Brilliant"


Digitalis lutea


Digitalis 1


Digitalis 2


Anomatheca laxa

 

Do you find anemotheca hardy @NigelJ ? I'd be tempted again to try if so. There's another bright red trailing small plant that I killed "Oop North" beginning with A that I want to try here... If only I could remember it.

 

@CarolineL Hardy so far, but it's only been there for a couple of years. I did have Anomatheca laxa "Joan Evans" which is white with red marks in the centre for some years in a much drier sunnier spot and it vanished about 10 years ago. Where the standard form is much less well drained and shadier, but it appears to be thriving so far.

 

Selenicereus grandiflora, night flowering cacti, the flower will be dead by morning.

 

Some photos of hardy geraniums mingling.

Johnson's Blue.



Ann Folkard and Rozanne.



Walter's Gift.

 

Polish Spirit is off on a mission
jenny namaste

 

Good year for the Cherries (Stella)
Enough for us and Mr.B.our resident Blackbird.

 

I’m not sure about this sempervivum flower. I find it slightly menacing. It looks like it could bite .

 

This is the complex of old ponds at the bottom of my garden. They are built into the slope, with one large pond at the lower level and three smaller ones behind it. The middle one of the upper set has an overflow feature and a stone cascade coming down into the lower one. They've long been derelict, and only five years ago all there was to see was perished liners (the bottom one was bright blue!) and a bit of dirty water, with a huge goat willow leaning over them and blocking out all the light.

I couldn't get all the plastic out of the bottom pond - there were big strong trays wedged in place that I couldn't shift. I didn't have enough earth to fill it either but I had plenty of wood from where I'd cleared buddleia in other parts of the garden, so I used a lot of that and put stumps on the top, intending a "stumpery" effect. Then I planted it up with some bare root astrantias, a hardy geranium, a eupatorium, and a buddleia I found self-seeded elsewhere. The buddleia isn't working - it's too shaded there and it gets really leggy and doesn't flower much. Everything else though I'm really pleased with. I think if I just cut down the buddleia I don't really need to add anything - the rest will do a good job of filling it.



The left hand of the upper ponds is concrete but drains well because it has a decent leak, and I planted mint there. It likes the shade and can't escape. The middle one is currently hosting daffodils in the spring, but I have now put in a small acer and some heucheras. The right one is still untouched. The blackbirds like to riffle through the leaf litter in it after the rain.


View of the ponds from the other side, with my vegetable area in the background. I have got french and borlotti beans on the arches as well as a climbing variety of courgette - first time I've tried those.


I have put a small preformed pond elsewhere in the garden for wildlife value.