It was the hottest day of the year so far today peaking at 27C and then starting to cooling down. It wasn't even sunny for much of the day but you could still feel the heat.

Here is today's Six on Saturday

1. Helenium 'El Dorado'

This seems to be one of the earliest Heleniums to flower. It's a great plant with strong thick stems that don't get blown over and lots and lots of flowers.

2. Campanula 'Sarastro'

This has very large flowers and, this year, a good number of them. Last year there was a second flush too.

You may also notice that I have a bit of a Verbena forest this year.

3. Campanula medium from seed

I grew these from seed last year. They have the same habit as foxgloves, the first year they are just a flat rosette of leaves, then they tower up and …

Here are some wild orchids that I saw along the path on the eastern side of the A19 near the Silverlink shopping center.

The first is a lovely Bee orchid (Ophrys apifera). Although it doesn't look so much like a bee from straight on, I did think that there was a bee in one of the flowers when I first saw it. I searched for bee orchid and the results look just like this.

The next two are similar to the ones in my Garden, and I used to think that this is what they were.

Here is another photo of one of the ones in my garden for comparison. The colour looks a lot different, but I think that is just the camera and lighting conditions (the others were taken with my phone). Its also worth noting that although both of them are now 45cm tall, the …

Close by the Campanula 'Sarastro' there were similar but smaller stems and buds that looked similar to the Campanula.

At first I thought it had spread, but then I noticed that there was a clear gap between the main plant and these new stems. Then I thought perhaps it had seeded, but it is supposed to be sterile.

Anyway the flowers are now out and are so very different it is hard to believe that there is any connection at all. On the other hand I have no other idea about where they have come from. Perhaps they have always been there and not flowered before. It is certainly difficult to notice the leaves as they are entirely hidden by the Solomon's seal and everything else that is in that area.

I've no idea what it is, after looking at some pictures the closest to the star shape of …

Its been a wet week with more rain than in the whole of May. In one way this is good as most of my plants don't tolerate dry soil and the previous dry spells this year and last have made me wonder if I've made a mistake.

The temperature has been low too so not much growth either but the flowers that are already out are probably lasting longer, at least where they are not damaged by the rain.

So here is my selection of six things in the garden today.

Here is the link to today's Six on Saturday at The Propagator blog, if you want to join in or just see more gardens around the world.

1. Orchid

This orchid was already in the garden, it may be wild as these kind of orchids grow around here.

This year I was very excited to see that there was …

It has rained a fair bit over the week and everything is growing very well all of a sudden. All the gaps that I was thinking would need filling are vanishing!

Not great weather for taking pictures today, but here goes with another Six on Saturday.

1 Monster Lupin

A pack of four Lupins bought from the range last year. The one with the most interesting colours did not survive, I gave one away (which is doing well). The smallest one from last year has come back much larger and has about five flowers at the moment.

But here is the largest one, with an astonishing number of flowers this year. I planted two new ones next to it, which I thought were well spaced, but are really a bit too close given how big it has grown. You can see the blue flower to the left of L.…

Comparison with previous years

You can read the round up from 2018 or 2017.

It may be that the dry conditions last year had a knock affect affected the plants that normally flower around this time as several displays were worse than last year.

Growth might be slightly behind last year in a few cases.

Flowering

Tulips

The Tulipa flowered quite late and were there for a good part of the month.

Polygonatum

This grows in a part of the garden that is not particularly shady and is still doing well. I may move it as this is a prime sunny spot for plants that will appreciate it.

Daffodils

By a happy accident I received these daffodils instead of the early flowering ones that I ordered. They were very successful as each bulb produced a couple of flowering stems and some of those stems had more than one flower. …

A useful amount of rain this week and although it was cold there was no frost. Today I planted all the plants that have been waiting until I dug up the next area of lawn which I completed last weekend. It now looks like it will be dry for a while, so I will probably have to water the new plants until they are established.

I'm quite pleased that there is no gap this year between the early spring flowers and the main summer flowers, I still have daffodils and tulips out and the next round of flowers are already beginning to bloom.

Here is this weeks Six on Saturday, six things in the garden today, see the Propagator blog for a whole heap of other Sixes.

1 Tulipa 'Ballade'

This is the final tulip to flower for me. It has lasted well, perhaps as it hasn't been so warm. …

You can compare with 2018 or 2017

The month started with a small covering of snow on the 3rd. There were 3 days when the temperature dropped below zero (which is more than February which only had one) with a minimum of -1.5C and the maximum temperature was 23C over the Easter weekend. So a very mixed month weather-wise. Not a lot of rain, only 2.8cm recorded on 9 days.

Flowering

Daffodils and tulips were the main focus of the month. I am pleased with the new ones I chose last year.

Here is Tulipa schrenkii

Three 'Orange brilliant' and two 'Cape cod' tulips. These returned from last year. These were the only two of the 'Cape cod' that flowered this year, and the leaves are being eaten just like last year, this may be why they are not doing well.

The double tulips that I planted when I first …