Next month’s GBBD may only be able to offer a mass of ivy booms like those above, but I love their sci-fi sputnik shape and unfussiness so if that’s all there is then I shall still enjoy seeing them. Carol of May Dreams Garden hosts the Blooms Day meme so check out her blog to see what is blooming today around the world.
When I picked for yesterday’s vase there were really only scraps available, so a paucity of blooms today was to be expected; however, I did find a few I had missed the day before. The milder weather, following on from last week’s cold and frost, has given many of the roses a new but temporary lease of life, with a number of buds taking advantage of the warmer incentive and opening – I am particularly optimistic about Munstead Wood (top row, second from left). The Osteospermum ‘Sky and Ice’ to its left is reflecting its name all the more as the year has gone on, with a distinctly blue tint to the outer petals and a definite blue centre. I had forgotten about Lavendula ‘Little Bee Purple’ outside the sitooterie (also top row), and this will no doubt make next week’s Monday vase.
On the bottom row, the pelargonium still blooming their socks off were fortunately brought inside the sitooterie just before last week’s frosts so haven’t stopped to draw breath, and in the bottom right corner is another doggy-paddling chrysanthemum that I overlooked, ‘Green Anastasia’. The others include the last bloom of Rudbeckia ‘Irish Eyes’, omnipresent Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and long flowering Antirrhinum ‘Twinny White’ and ‘Admiral’s Purple’ as well as all those roses. None of these, however, can can compare with my favourite clematis, C cirrhosa ‘Freckles’, which is seeking to replicate its predecessor which was never without a flower for a whole three year period: