Part of my plan to make our garden lower maintenance is to plant more flowering shrubs, they take up a decent amount of room, often flower for a few weeks and still look reasonable for the rest of the year. So far I’ve planted a new buddleia, a hebe, a very pretty rhododendron as well as replanting quite a few which were moved for the redevelopment of the top garden.

Some of the established shrubs are putting on a good show at the moment, this pink one in the deep border is a deutzia I think, it’s been covered in flowers for a couple of weeks now. Once it’s finished flowering I really need to prune it, tidy it up a bit. You can just see the creamy white flowers of a philadelphus behind it, that one will smell gorgeous.

The smattering of alliums are looking good at the moment, I did have to dig a lot up as they were just getting to be invasive. In the photo above there’s also a pale pink aquilegia and a blue perennial cornflower.

Just above the patio on the raised bed is a large choisya, it’s covered in flowers but unfortunately doesn’t smell so nice, it’s reminiscent of cat pee!!

In the front garden is a beautiful rose, every year it’s smothered in blossom at this time of year, it’s scent is gorgeous. I’m pretty sure this is a Scottish rose, or  Rosa spinosissima, it is pretty prickly so it’s well named! I’m going to have to trim it a little after flowering as it’s quite a sqeeze to pass it on the path…and there’s a tall sucker that needs to come out.

I’ve room for a few more flowering shrubs so I’ll keep my eye open for them when we go to the RHS show in July.