Mid July

Well, here we are in the middle of Julyn and finally there are signs of promise. In the long borders, although the lupins are beginning to look a wee bit jaded, various others are almost ready to take their place - the campanulas against the wall are just starting to flower and should look pretty spectacular this year as they are at least a foot and a half higher than last year, the Centaurea is the same, the Echinops purpurea is threatening too, but the most impressive display will be the Kiftsgate rose against the wall up by the summerhouse. It has started to flower but there quite literally thousands more flowers to open, so if all is well on the weather front for the next seven days, it should be in full and spectacular bloom nxet week. Here is what it looks like at the moment....

Apologies for the poor quality of this photo but you can see the mass of blooms just waiting to open quite clearly, especially along the top of the wall.
Elsewhere, one of the roses that were planted in the old rose bed that did survive was a variety called Happy Birthday and it has its first bloom open, with a lot more buds to follow...

The Achillea, variety Summer Pastels, which was a star performer last year has not put on so much growth this year -probably due to it being divided into a lot of smaller clumps, is beginning to flower as well, with an S shape planting across the two borders....

and the Scabious (which ranks right up there with the oriental poppy in my "nice but way too fragile" list) is also flowering and attracting a lot of bees - in fact the whole garden was quite literally buzzing today with lots and lots of bees hard at work...

Away from the borders and onto the fruit now, the Tullameen rasps have a lot of fruit on them and there are quite a few on the Glen Moy and Glen Ample canes too, which is a bonus.The strawberries, planted only a few weeks ago are flowering their socks off and so we should get a few bwerries this year, though what I'm really after this tear are the runners to multiply the stock.
The redcurrants, variety Jonkeer Van Tets, are starting to blush....

but as for stone fruits ? The blossom was late this year and came when it was too cold and wet for most insects so there are very few apples and as for the pears - well I swear to you I took this pjoto today - Pear Blossom In July ????????

At various points in the garden there are Hypericum bushes and these too are alive with bees at the moment - this particular one is against the wall at the potting shed arch...

On the veg front, today I picked another Hispi cabbage, dug up the first of the International Kidney potatoes and pulled a heap of finger carrots (thinnings of edible size!!), which I gave to Sally on my departure.
Its all  looking good though the Climbing Beans are still a bit pale for my liking, though they are making their way up the canes, so they can't be too poorly. There are some beetroot growing up between the rhubard and the cordon sweet peas and these were looking quite healthy last week - this week the nice have paid them a visit......

On the Sweet Pea fronr, the cordon grown ones are procing more flower stems now - these should be open in a coule of days/ The sweet peas growing in the borders have started to flower but it is really noticeable how much longer, stronger and straighter the flower stems on the cordon grown plants are compared to those grown up the traditional wigwam.
Anyway, will take some pics of this next week. Til then I'll leave you with the potting shed view, and also the news that the baby wrens went from being more or less featherless and ugly last week, to fledged in a week - when I arrived this morning they were quite literally fleeing the nest.