end of August/beginning of September

Japanese anemone

a few days later, a spider has spun a web

the flower on that hosta with the enormous leaves, right above

hosta flower

a close up of the mahonia buds

mahonia buds

I'm happy I have flowers on these Phoenix Nasturtiums, especially as I didn't sow the seeds until July 2nd. Thompson and Morgan advised these were the closest to the Nasturtium Fruit Salad which I had problems with last year. They just look like bog standard nasturtiums to me, not sure what makes them Phoenix.

nasturtium phoenix

just similar to the nasturtiums by the front door below

flowering rosemary

I've had rosemary plants before but no flowers, this one I bought in flower Sept 2014 and it's been blooming on and off ever since. They seem fragile as branches break off if I even breath on it! Those little branches at the bottom right have broken off so I just put in the soil but they aren't growing, just turning brown.

rosemary

surprising rosemary seedlings as I've heard they are hard to germinate but I have no idea if they will flower and when (the Diet Coke is for scale)

rosemary seedlings

I've been unsure about these self-seeders. They generally look like centaurea montana which I've had off and on for a few years although they've never self-seeded. The two at the top have prickly-edged leaves. Why and are they the same plant?

a few days later and it's all become clearer! The current centaurea montana are growing in this flowerbed and I took the two pots with the unprickly-edged plants and positioned them under those in the flowerbed and I feel sure they are centaurea montana. Self-seeded to the left in the blue and white pot looks like another one which I will see how it grows.

As I was positioning these plants I saw a little shoot from the base of the globe thistle to the right which looks exactly like the prickly-edged examples in the pots to the right.

a close-up of the self-seeded globe thistles in the two pots to the left and the sprout from the base of the globe thistle to the right

I look forward to lots of centaurea montana and globe thistles next year.

Socks, finally looking at the camera, the apples to the right have fallen from the tree in the back garden, sadly they are not very good even for cooking as they cook down to mush in no time, I've been having to pick them up every day recently they've been falling so quickly.

a huge bumblebee on a second sunflower I have blooming in the front garden

Sowing the milk thistle seeds has been a great success, at least one seedling to each pot, most pots have more. The slugs have gotten to some. I need to be more vigilant. After the seed leaves there are the distinctive patterned leaves, prickly on the edge, so my idea that maybe the other centaurea-looking plants with prickly edged leaves are milk thistle is false.

milk thistle

I put the lupins on these shelves to keep them away from the slugs. The slugs are more wiley than that! They've made it up to the bottom pot which has another self-seeded plant it - something left by the slugs.

lupins in terracotta pots

Those lupins above and the violas below have this fungal growth on them.