Blogger's Bloom Day

It's Blogger's Bloom day and I've had my first courgette flower! Hopefully this year my courgettes won't suffer from blossom rot. I've grown two varieties of courgette 'All Green Bush' and  yellow 'Soleil F1'. The plants I put into the ground have suffered from slug and insect attack. I'm hoping my pot grown veg will be good producers this year.

Here's a snapshot of what's in bloom...

Poached Egg Plant / Limnanthes Douglasii, (Hardy Annual) still going strong. 

Above and Below: Wild foxglove self seed in the garden.

Above: A chives border attract bees.
Below: Flowering roses (they don't seem to mind blackspot too much).

Above and Below: Snapdragon that have over wintered and going strong.

Above and Below: Aquilegia with lupin in the background.

Lupin bring a splash of colour in May./June.

Above and below - I can't remember what these two are called?

Happy Blogger's Bloom Day!

Blogger's Bloom Day is hosted by:

http://www.maydreamsgardens.com

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Bendy Lupin Flowers

After our two weeks of really warm weather and sunshine we're back to grey skies and rain. The forecast for the rest of June isn't great but hopefully some sunny days will appear. The plants have been under a bit of stress from weather extremes and I think this has caused some of my plants, like turnips, to bolt. Watching Gardener's World on Sunday makes me feel better to know that Monty Don has had problems with his veg bolting. 

This year my lupin flowers have bent. I'm not sure if this is a result of weather conditions or something else. I recall reading an article about this recently but I can't remember the rationale (will have to dig through magazines to try to find the article). The flowers still look great but I'm curious why they have bent.

Variety: Lupin Russell Mix (perennial), grown from seed several years ago.

Little white lines drawn in above help show the bendy flower stems.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Aquilegia in Action

Columbine / Aquilegia are probably in their prime at the minute. It's a shame they only flower for a short period, generally May-June. I'm trying to prolong the flowering by deadheading.

Variety: Aquilegia Long Spurred Hybrid (Perennial), Suttons 'Cottage Garden' Seed Collection. All the Columbine were sown Summer of 2010 and this is their 2nd year in flower. (I had to go and look this up as two years ago can seem just like last year!)

Even green fly can be a thing of beauty?
Well, I'm not too keen to see greenfly on my plants. I generally have greenfly on roses but this year they have taken a liking to the Aquilegia as well. They multiply fast too!

The bright pink Columbine is one of the most striking. Pictured with Poached Egg Plant /Limnanthes Douglasii in the background.

The lupin and columbine I didn't separate before planting into the ground. I'll have to do this in the Autumn.

The seed pack where it all started, and my review on the varieties:
Aquilegia - easy to grow, a range of size and colour within the mix (some more favoured than others).
Aster 'Aster Ostrich Plume Mix' - they were big and bold. See my attempt at growing these here.
Cornflower - I wasn't impressed as they were insignificant and short lived.
Hollyhock - I manged to grow one plant last year but I was proud of it!
Lupin - the prize definitely goes to Lupin for impact and easy to grow (just watch out for slugs)!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.