I planted about 20 of these 'Blue mountain' Gladioli, mostly together in this clump.

They were planted quite deeply and all but one have remained standing without any staking.

First noticed this Cyclamen was flowering about a week ago, wasn't really expecting it so early.

1 Lobelia

This is L 'Fan salmon' at the front and just behind it L 'Starship scarlet'.

The 'Starship scarlet' which was one of my favourite plants of last year did not survive the winter, so this is a replacement for this year.

The 'Fan salmon' was severely eaten by snails last year. Most of the leaves were stripped off as well as the outer part of the stalks and unsurprisingly there were hardly any flowers on it. However it did survive the winter and is flowering now. The flowers are less dense than the Starship.

Also there is Sidalcea 'Little princess' and Lythrum in the background.

2 Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm'

The plant has spread greatly since last year. However not really more flowers, at least so far.

3 Liatris

After last years Liatris disaster, where there was not a single flower, this year I have about four. I did …

I am very late in finishing the July round up, but as always it covers what was happening in July and all picture are from during the month.

You can compare with July last year. There was far more rain last year.

It was nearly a whole month of hot sunshine without rain, but rain fell in the final few days of the month, there was also some rain on the 16th.

In flower this month

I've already shown many of the flowers during the month in previous posts. Most of the following have not been mentioned before.

Salvia 'Wendys wish' : I saved this via a cutting over the winter. It has grown much bigger this year and there are lots of flowers. I'm glad that I've now had a chance to see it at its best, but I shall not be saving it for another year, if it dies …

Just some rain would have been nice, but instead we got thunderstorms with high winds. I was dreading plants being blown over, but so far mostly OK, although more high winds and rain forecast for tomorrow, so too early to tell.

So here is this weeks Six things in the garden today. For more garden snapshots in handy six packs see over at The Propagator.

1. Zinnia

This year my Zinnias were mostly planted directly outside in the containers and are so much better than last year when they were started off inside and grew with thin stalks that fell over and had leaves that said 'Eat me'.

The variety is Z. Whirlygig mixed so they are all different. They are all pretty, but this one is completely stunning with the electric blue effect around the center that looks like it is glowing. Glad that the photo captures the effect …

This Geum has flower stalks before, but the buds all died or were eaten. This is its first flower. The plant itself looks very healthy and is as large as the other that I got at the same time.

Last year when I cut out one row of the hedge in the front garden there was a strawberry plant growing which was included in a November six on Saturday.

With more light it has flowered this year and now there are some tiny little strawberries.

Although the focus in the garden is on perennials, I've added several perennials this year to fill in gaps and it is working quite well.

I decided that growing Lobelia was too much trouble, so I just got a tray of 25 and put some in the containers and the rest around the edges of the beds. They are mixed colours and so provide a bit more interest.

I also got a tray of 20 mixed Pelargoniums which have also gone into the containers and spread out in gaps in the beds. They have grown at vastly different rates depending on where they were planted which is interesting information. Down the side of the house where even the weeds don't grow, they have remained almost the same size as when they were planted and yet have flowered first. In the containers they have grown very large, and yet were the …