Smelling and looking beautiful in my garden at the moment. I’ve had 4 new roses over the past 2 years including this one and I think it’s been a good year for them, they and the others mores established ones have flowered very well this year and are still going
I’m sad to say the end of summer is here and as much as I hate the hot weather that come with it and the lack of rain I like the garden in summer. I’ve had a mixed year with seeds and my vegetable growing but a good year flower wise.
I grew Tithonia, sunflowers, poppies, sweetpea and cosmos from seed this summer. The Tithonia are lovely but only started flowering in late August, however, I will definitely grow them again as they are still flowering and we don’t have much orange in the garden.
The sunflowers have done really well and are still going at more than 6 foot tall with multiple flowers per plant.
The poppies did ok but they never last long and so I often miss them flowering and therefore have no pictures. The cosmos I sowed late and as per their usual habit haven’t even considered flowering yet. They start later every year. The sweetpeas have been lovely although eaten by the greenfly. I have a few ladybirds on the plants but they are overcome with too much food I think.
The vegetables have been interesting, I sowed carrots, courgettes and tomatoes. The carrots I harvested today and look more like radishes.
The courgettes keep flowering but don’t create any fruit and my tomatoes while very healthy plants didn’t have many fruit but were largely neglected I think. I planted them direct into ground this year for the first time and I’m not sure I’ll do it again.
However, the roses including 2 new ones have been beautiful this year. The helenium, penstamen and many other cottage garden plants have been good and are still flowering or at least they were when I last checked but today it’s been so wet I imagine they may have suffered.
I’m not a fan of Valentine’s Day for reasons we go into here but I do love red roses so here’s some we cut off one from our garden when pruning a rose last autumn 
My roses have been looking very beautiful up until now. However, we are desperate for rain so I won’t complain about it!
It seems a bit early for our first Rose and I should really have taken this picture earlier in the day as the extremely weather has meant the petals are already threatening to fall off but here is the first rose for the year, hopefully the first of many. I’m sure the roots are in the drain. It’s been here a long time and does so well
Roses and calicarpa
Is quite a wet place but filled with colour and some new plants. The early flowers such as poppies, lupins and foxgloves (picture below of a late flowerer) have mostly finished and the later flowers such as Japanese anemones (picture below), rudbeckia, helenium and phlox are steeling the show.
I have been busy digging out a dusky pink overgrown celone from the long border (as I call it), digging in compost and replanting with a variety of things. A lovely blue Veronica (seems quite happy in its spot),
a perennial foxglove, chocolate cosmos, dianthus and some lupin grown from seed. The lupins were very happy in the greenhouse but much less impressed with the garden.
Pictures of other plants flowering below including a hellebore flowering only 6 months early and some of my new plants 
I have just returned home from a week away and my garden has literally taken off while I’ve been gone. So many new things flowering and even my seeds in the greenhouse have come on so well. Must be all that rain we’ve had. I’ve been able to spend a little time tidying up and planting some things out a bit late but the weather was poor before I left! Here’s what’s currently flowering in my garden
