blooming marvellous!

30/31 May: What a weekend! It's been blisteringly hot with clear blue skies all around since Friday. It's been a long weekend of several gardens. In between working in my garden (more on that later), I've been enjoying life in a beer garden (ok, not many plants to look at but you cant beat a long cool drink with a friend on a sunny day), a garden centre (to help the same friend get some plants for pots), and Gardening Scotland. The sunny weather certainly encourage people to visit the show in their 1000's. The childrens pallet gardens at Gardening Scotland were inspirational in their creativity and a perfect reminder that you dont need a big space to create an impact. In the floral hall, my favourite display was the mecanopsis garden which was simply full of the most stunning metre high blue poppies.

My mecanopsis (bought at the show a few years ago) is yet to make an appearance this year, but it wont reach the striking heights of its show cousins. This weekend however, the garden has been jam packed with new appearances. The peony is now in full bloom and heavily laden with soft ruffled heads of crimson.

The graceful purple iris with fine dark purple and white markings and yellow centres has started to flower alongside the vivid yellow hemerocallis (day lily).

Every week new types of aquilegia open this week's additions include a stunning pink and yellow variety and the blackest purple one has tall lilac tufts that start like tiny blackcurrant berries.
The alliums continue to shoot forth while the normally understated silver leaved celmesia has thrown a plethora of thick rope like stems with with daisy like flowers.

Mr & Mrs Great Tit are still working hard but no sign of the chicks yet other than the sound of constant clamour when food arrives. More orange tipped butterflies are breezing through the garden but no others to report yet.

Finally, it great to see the grasses quietly making a come back alongside the showier blooms. The first heads on the stipa gigantica are fluttering in the sun glinting green and pink whilst a very different smaller grass sports the first spiky mace-shaped heads.

With everything sprouting its proving tough to stay on top of the dead-heading and weeding but I'm trying. The vegetables and fruit are also coming on in leaps and bounds. This week:

• We've been enjoying the first peppery radishes along with more salad leaves.
• Potting on the chilli and pepper seedlings that we've grown from seed along with some cauliflower seedlings we've been given.
• The peas are now about a metre high so I've added more string to the wigwams to give the something to hold on to.
• The tomatoes have been basking in the sun and are already sprouting their first flowers.

Fingers crossed for a good crop!