Summer Daisy Gift

Last May I blogged about my struggle to find any Ox-eye Daisies in any of the garden centres.

Carol at "Smile at the flowers" did just that and sent me some live plants in the post!

I was delighted when a few brave daisy heads managed to bloom considering their arrival in a box and then being put in the ground I was not really expecting them to do anything.

As for this year.....well they have been fabulous!  The plants have multiplied 4 fold and there are so many blooms on them I am astonished.

I can see them from my kitchen window and they have made such an impact on the whole garden. Due to an on-going struggle with slugs I have decided to give up with our veg patch and stick to berry fruits (of which I have good success rates) and flowers to help the bee population.  So our garden is going for the country cottage garden look without the veg bit.

The apples have made an excellent start.  They loved all of the rain that we had and here was no wind this year to knock the blossom off too soon.

The hydrangea's have gone mad with flower heads as big as Sophie's head which she could hardly believe when she saw them.  Now these flowers love water and our excessive rain has been their cause for success.

We have also tried other plants to find out what the slugs will avoid and stocks are one of them.  Not as fragrant as I was hoping but they smell more in the evening.

The hanging baskets are looking brilliant although the sudden hot weather has meant some late evening watering to make sure they stay this way.

We have even had success with seeds which is virtually unknown in our house!

The honeysuckle is out, the pinks we planted are in bloom but not when I took these pictures and even my roses out in the front garden have had more blooms this year that in all of the previous years put together.  So we may have dreaded the rain and many people had a dreadful time you can see why it is needed by our planet, it just needs to be in manageable quantities but we can not really control it can we?

Does anyone have any other plant suggestions that I could try over the coming year?

Carol very kindly sent many other plants of which several have also bloomed including holly hocks and foxgloves.

Unfortunately last November we had to have our garden dug up by the electricity board due a line fault in someone else's house which ran under our garden.  This is actually the morning after as the fault was found at 9pm and they were digging all night!

We even had a mini JCB in the what s a very small garden.  Sophie's playhouse was moved lock stock and barrel to the other corner and several of Carol's plants were lost that day.

The garden was re-turfed, twice in fact due to a large section having died off.

The hole that they dug was over 10 foot deep and went into next doors garden as well.

I shall try and take some current pictures from our bedroom window but there is yet again someone in the next garden burning green garden waste on a lovely day with windows open and people's washing out!  Thick white billowing smoke everywhere.

"Billy Bonfire" hubby calls him. He has done this every day since last Saturday.  His garden looks like Beirut and there seems to be no end to it.  Very anti-social really.  He must have seen us looking over the fence as he has moved his burning dustbin further down the garden.  If the wind blows the wrong way it is straight in through my french windows.

He did this during the world cup a few years ago, we were in the garden and our eyes ran and we had to go indoors and leave everything outside.  We stank so much we had to change our clothes and have showers.

However......we shall continue with our flower garden and see what we end up with next year. What about those daisies though.......lets have another look.......

I think you can sense how happy I am with these very happy looking flowers.

Have a good day.

xx
PS Just rang the council about Billy Bonfire and apparently he is within his legal rights to burn in his garden!  What about my legal rights to sit in mine without being gassed out and needing a shower!  We are breathing it all in as well!  What is the difference between this and noise pollution?
House is sweltering, all doors and windows are shut dare not look at temperature, Sophie is not happy.  Great day ahead I think.