Sunday...( with Echium reflections )

I’ve been working on some table projects today, but basically there’s been no gardening as it’s been so wet and windy in Brighton...

...although I did manage an early morning bike ride as the wind was thankfully behind my back up the long hill home, ( even though I was already completely soaked by then! )

AND I managed to salvage some ruddy coloured hydrangea and blue agapanthus heads which had made their way into the cycle path!

So, instead, I thought I’d reflect, on the rise of my Giant Echium over the past few months...

These leaves sprung into a giant purple spike during May which then attracted thousands of bees constantly for at least 2 months...

I was out there at 05:30 one morning and the bees were already going mad for it...

When I realised it was an extraordinary happening this year ( I’ve grown them before but they’ve never been as magnificent as this )...I started to take visual notes, using my son as a marker...

...and actually he seems to have grown as rapidly as the Echium!

             

The small purple flowers have now virtually disappeared from the spike...

( but I’ll be selling seeds at my Christmas Open House in November as there were so many people who wanted some during the May Festival ).

Smaller seedlings are also dotted about the garden, girding themselves for next year...

...hoping for a snail free existence!

The light is very strange and the wind is crazy today, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that tonight isn’t the night the Giant Echium succumbs to gravity!