Potting Up...

>Good Day SunshineWe have at last had more than a couple of days of sunshine in one week and - Ta Dah! the sunflowers are out. This is Helianthus 'Pacino'. I think you can work out why it has that name.

Agastache foeniculum 'Liquorice Blue' and Helianthus 'Pacino' blooming in the Whichford stockyard

I am a very [...]

I am a very disobedient gardener for allowing the plants to hide the pots but I do love to see them thrive and I'm sure all the keen gardeners who visit the pottery feel the same. Regular readers will see from this picture that most of the Nemesia 'Masquerade' has finished flowering and been removed, but the other plants have done so well that there are no noticeable gaps...

A bit chilly this week, but lots of visitors. Many of them tell me what a lovely job I have - well yes... in the summer at any rate! I haven't finished planting out all the late-flowerers but the dahlias are definitely making their presence felt. My favourite at the moment is 'Swing' from the Melody series...

I have been waiting for rain, so that I don't have to waste productive gardening time writing the blog, but the phrase "Be careful what you wish for" springs to mind. As I write rain is hammering on the roof and my elder son is on his way to the Isle of Skye for his Duke of Edinburgh Gold expedition - with rain, rain and more rain forecast for north-west Scotland...

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New flowers are emerging all the time. Here is the chocolate-scented Cosmos atrosanguineus, its dark flowers are easily overlooked but so neat and beautiful when you do notice them - and such an odd fragrance!

Cosmos atrosanguineus - can you smell chocolate?

And here is Ipomoea purpurea 'Grandpa Ott'; he has taken a while to get going in [...]

New flowers are emerging all the time. Here is the chocolate-scented Cosmos atrosanguineus, its dark flowers are easily overlooked but so neat and beautiful when you do notice them - and such an odd fragrance...

The plantings are fluffing up nicely; Salvias, Dahlias and Pelargoniums are beginning to flower in earnest after a little sunshine and the higher temperatures mean that everyone spends more time enjoying the garden, including the cat...

We have two families of blackbirds busy in the garden at the moment. Mrs B is well hidden in the hedge near the entrance arch but another family (probably Mrs B's son or daughter) is in the rose now in full bloom on the wall of the pottery...

The garden is full to bursting and yet we are stuffing more and more plants in pots and inflicting them on an unsuspecting public. We are getting more and more visitors now, inluding a local art group who unfortunately got rained on...

t was hard to start planting the summer displays last week because of the continuing cool and drying wind. This developed into a cold, blustery wind. I carried on planting, but some of the tender plants were damaged and battered by the wind and had trouble establishing while their tender new leaves lost too much water...