I was lucky to see a comma butterfly in the garden today. I know that they are quite widespread and fairly common, but I've only ever seen a few of them, so to me, it is quite special to see one, especially as it stayed so long.
It spent all its time on the Verbena bonariensis, sometimes flying away as if to see if there was anything better, but always coming back.
Just suddenly noticed a couple of days ago that a few flowers had appeared on the Winter Jasmine. It was flowering when I arrived here, so I didn't know when it was likely to start flowering.
Lovely start to the day warm and sunny, then got a bit dull in the afternoon. I was wondering if I would be able to scrape together six things, but I did manage without any too recent repetition.
So here goes with another Six on Saturday.
This Salvia has started flowering again. I got it in mid June and it hasn't grown much since then, so its nice to see the new flowers.
Taking pictures of pure red flowers is difficult as they tend to come out as a featureless blob. In fact they looks like a featureless blob when viewed from the house, so a lot of that is due to how the eye doesn't see shades of red as well as other colours. I reduced the exposure for this photo and it has come out a little better than my previous attempts.
Don't often get a chance to see the Gazanias in flower, so glad to catch this picture. The plants were severly damaged by slugs or some other pest but are now looking quite healthy. Unfortunately there is probably not going to be too many days suitable for flowering as it seem that they need both sun and warmth to open up fully.
It will be Sunday soon, so without further introduction on to this week's Six things on a Saturday.
I read that Sedum are very good for attracting bees, hoverflies and butterflies, but I cannot say that I have seen an insect of any kind on these ones. Web searching does bring up many pictures, so it can't be a total myth, but here the bees are still sticking mostly to the lavender and Lythrum. Butterflies sometimes fly over, but don't find reason to land.
I really like these berries which form bright red bunches that contrast well with the leaves.
I believe it is a Cotoneaster Bullatus also known as a Hollyberry Cotoneaster and the berries do remind me of holly.
The birds are not eating the berries so far, but I believe that they do and this causes it to be quite invasive. There are …
I bought this quite late in the year and it was a small plant, but considering that it is doing well with just about every stem flowering away.
The sedum is a slow growing thing, the flowers have been forming for ages and they are now starting to open. I expect that they have further to open but we shall see how long they will last for.
A sunny start to the day, so getting this Six on Saturday out early today.
I have two Japanese Anemones bought this year. The first quickly went brown and most of the leaves died off. The second grew well and had quite a few buds.
In the last week however, the second one (a pink variety Anemone hupehensis 'Praecox'), suddenly suffered the same fate as the first. Many of the leaves are turning brown and the buds have all wilted.
On the other hand the first ("Honorine Jobert") now has a flower, with another just starting to open. It is still a very small plant, but it was only last week I think that I was wondering if it would survive.
I've been watering them in case that is the problem as I read that they need a lot of water until they are established. Then once …