Tuesday...

The shasta daisies have finally opened as has the montbretia ( or Crocosmia )!

The daisies are pretty hardy and will hopefully now flower throughout the summer; I have to pull up a lot of them as they spread like mad, but I am really happy about the montbretia, because some years only a few appear.

I think because we had a lot of rain earlier on in the year, followed by some beautiful weather recently, they’ve been a lot happier, and they always remind me of The Lake District too, where I spent a lot of my childhood...

The tin of Lakeland Pencils ( Cumberland pencils were very famous in their time ) is also a sentimental reminder of the Lakes as they belonged to my Grandparents who lived up there...( and which have now become one of my most useful props for the table! )

Although the garden is blooming, there are also lots of plants experiencing their exciting twilight days...

I’m amazed that these poppy heads I’ve picked are already shedding seeds...

This is the first year I’ve grown these purple Opium Poppies, so I don’t want to demolish the whole plant just yet...

...these Nigella seed heads are probably my absolute favourite pod at the moment ( I think I even prefer them to their flowers! )

and this little weirdo is, I think, a Chive...I say 'I think', because other Chives I have, always grow flowers and then drop seeds, but this seems to be growing more chive plants from the actual seed head!

I will watch and learn...

I’ve been a bit remiss with the picking of the Calendulas, so there are only a couple of flowers left at the moment, but loads of seed heads...

I have been picking a lot of sweet peas though, and only left a few seed pods on the plant. They seemed very fat this morning so I’ve risked picking them...

and the Californian Poppies have so many seeds appearing that I only save a few of the pods having picked loads...

I usually let things just self seed, but as I have so many pods and seeds already this year I thought that I’d try the brown paper bag method of putting them all into paper bags and letting them dry out over the next few months...

...I’m also hoping that over the coming weeks the recovery table will look a bit better, although the succulents are doing really well; producing their mini succulents on what had appeared to be dead stems...

So, many seed pods in the garden making me happy and being very productive...

...unlike these many gastrpods who are making me nervous and still being very destructive!