Abundance

Everything in the garden is not rosy but the borders are certainly full- everything has burst into flower. Aubretia and saxifrage are over; please don't laugh at my attempts at an alpine garden- this recently planted sink housed D3's pumpkin plant last year so it is a productive micro garden! I have harped on for eons- well since losing the tiny drop down onto the patio- for a curtain of pink 'Tumbling Ted' and aubretia again so here it is in its infancy....



Being a largely shaded garden there are geraniums of all varieties and colours.



The paeonies are drooping with heavy, blushing scarlet heads.



Fences are abuzz courtesy of pyracantha which I had not realised the bees seem to love.



Chelsea Flower Show (press your red button- I didn't know we had one!I am such a technosaur) is pushing the need for pollinators- Huh! D3, Rainbow K and I all recognised this a LONG time ago- what kept you Alan Titchmarsh? There is to be a new symbol put on bee-loving plants for sale in marketgardens so do buy some for your patch on God's earth- imagine what would happen to our food supplies if all the buzzy bees died!



We also have purpled Granny's Bonnets (aquilegia or more usually known as columbine) by the score; in front of the laurel hedge I have successfully grown a couple of varieties of iris- a yellow-brownish bearded one and a group of flags erupted bearing blue flowers- blue seems a more appropriate colour for an iris somehow.



To match the bonnets I have Ladies Mantle- alchemilla is a bit blandly green but is good for use in a flower display when you have refreshed & thrown out some of the cut flowers but want to give the last few heads a few more vase days.



In a spot where nothing grows I have planted a number of things apparently to no avail but...... my domestic trek through our abode to dump hand dishwashing water has not been wasted! My clematis is wonderful if I say it myself! Purples and blues don't seem to photograph to their true blue on my diddy camera but no one can ask more of you than one does one's best.



The smaller flowered ceanothus has survived the brown burn of winter cold whereas I have had to saw down the large more treelike ceanothus which got hit two bad winters running and didn't make it!



Though badly frosted and delayed by the snow, the weigela has started to flower too.



The welsh poppies are going to be accompanied by the big red poppies which are wrongly placed at the front of the border where they are too tall for the Chelsea style 'banking' effect!!!!!!!! as if you really believed I planned it! I thought the Chelsea garden for the British Heart Foundation was memorable and effective.



We went with the Newcastle and Northumberland bunch to St James Church on Condercum Road in the west end (Benwell) of Newcastle; Richard Grainger, builder, with John Dobson, of much of central Newcastle, is buried in this graveyard. (Sir John Betjeman thought Grey Street the most beautiful street in the world).



The church needs much restoration but is architecturally very valuable and is connected to so many famous names eg Shafto, Riddell, Scot (as in Scotswood), Buddle and the childrens' tv programme 'Byker Grove!