Weather has been a bit mixed this last week, when I’ve been working (in a windowless department!) it’s been glorious sunshine but when I’ve been free to garden it’s been windy and raining! I’ve managed a few minutes weeding and that’s been it, so they’re shooting up along with the plants!

The star plant of the week is definitely a huge iris next to our conservatory, it’s at least two foot tall and a most beautiful shade of blue. My mum came for tea on Saturday and immediately wanted one to draw! What makes me laugh though is that if you look carefully you can just see a tiny dark purple iris right next door to it – I think that one needs moving!

Several shrubs are flowering at the moment. This photo is from the patio looking up towards the fence, the choisya is flowering and you can just see a deutsia at the top with it’s pale pink blooms. The sambuscus on the right has come into leaf over the last few days too, it’s a lovely purple leaved version, it can be a bit of a thug so I keep it well pruned.

At the side of the drive I have a large rose bush, I seem to remember it was called a Scottish rose, it’s very spiny and just has this one early, stunning flush of flowers. I’ve never pruned it, I’ve never found any information on how to prune these ones. Just below it is another Choisya, this one is called Sundance, it’s also just flowering at the moment.

From the top of the drive the view from the gate is over the patio, it’s filling up nicely with geraniums, aquilegias and the occasional poppy foliage. I have high hopes for my standard rose as it’s from David Austins, it will have beautiful, scented white roses hopefully.

The pond garden is still looking good, some of the hostas are seriously big now, I’m hoping the toad I saw in the pond a couple of weeks ago has a good appetite for slugs! The little plant at the front just starting to shoot up is a rogersia, I’d forgotton what I planted there until I saw it’s leaves. I’ve still a fair bit of weed killing to do as you can see here!

There’s quite a few clematis in flower at the moment, this is one I planted last year to help cover the back fence, it looks quite pretty round the bird box.I’m quite disappointed with the birds this year, we usually have one or two families of blue tits or great tits in the nest boxes. Last year I put up four more boxes, both tit size and open ones for robins. What have they done, only gone and nested in nextdoors garden with their plastic grass and paving!!! I’m wondering if it is actually too busy with birds coming in and out to feed for them to nest as well. They take my food…

I do feel sorry for the little boy next door, he was playing with his new drone when it sailed over the fence into our garden, well it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack! It’s only the size of a tennis ball, we’re keeping our eyes open but I can see if it hasn’t flown on past our garden, it may well be autumn before it’s found! You can see from the evening shot of the garden below taken an hour ago how much the garden has filled out. I just need to keep up with it now!