Wordless Wednesday – Simples*

A lovely simple, fresh combination of pink Cosmos ‘Cupcakes’, Dahlia ‘Eveline’ and (I think) Aster × frikartii ‘Mönch’ as seen (on 18/08/2026) at the beautiful gardens of Kathy Brown** in Stevington, North Bedfordshire. Don’t you just love that little peek of yellow pompom dahlia, echoing the cosmos buds?

*Simples – is a word that entered the Collins English Dictionary after it became a popular catch-word from the Meerkat (price comparison) television advert and subsequently picked up and used by various politicians.

**Kathy Brown opens her garden to the public for a number of Open Days throughout the summer and there is always a magnificent selection of delicious cakes to sample whilst relaxing on her lawn. She is also author of the several flower books, including ‘The Edible Flower Garden‘.

Six on Saturday – Keeping the Flame(s) Alive

So, let’s get the weather talk out of the way: It is definitely less hot, so that’s good, but it is still depressingly crispy-dry, so loads of plants are struggling. Our silver birch in the corner is a sad, now-leafless example of this. We had the tiniest bit of rain in the early hours of Tuesday, my birthday. (There was nothing unusual about that, because it follows the pattern of a lifetime 😂 !!). I am continuing to water quite a lot of stuff, using a watering can of course, to keep key vegetables going, provide spots of bright cheerful colour in the borders and to keep watering holes for wildlife supplied. My arms are at least two inches longer and my biceps are more noticeable.

This morning I caught this deer (a Muntjac) sauntering around the garden grazing our borders. It seems to like large-leaved plants, in particular: tithonias, sunflowers, heliopsis, echinacea, squash and cucumbers … which are all now devoid of leaves and largely headless.

Six on Saturday is a fun, weekly gardening meme, curated by Jim@gardenruminations. Simply create a post about 6 garden-related things that you want to share, link to Jim’s blog and mention your own post in the comments section. There will be tons of other links to posts to explore there.

Anyhow, here are six lovely, bright orange (flame-like) plants that are looking good in our garden right now:

1 Kniphofia

Commonly known as Red Hot Pokers, these flower spikes look exactly like that, punching through the rest of the plants in the border, with a burning intensity! This one, (whose label I have mislaid, sorry), doesn’t have ugly chunky leaves and so looks pretty neat for ages, as well as being dramatic when in flower. Happily, it has needed zero watering.

2 Ginger Lilies

This is Hedychium densiflorum ‘Assam Orange’. Ginger lilies need more water than you might think, as you can see from the scorched leaves here!

3 Rose

Lady Emma Hamilton is a lovely rose, that positively glows in the evening sunlight at this time of year. Sadly, it is a cultivar that is not recommended by David Austin any longer (due to its poor disease resistance). Lady of Shalott® is billed as a healthier alternative. Nevertheless, Lady E is doing surprisingly well here this year, in spite of the drought … as are most roses.

4 Tithonia

This is Tithonia rotundifolia ‘Torch’ which is a reliable, cheerful annual. It is having a fast turnover in flowers with the heat, but is otherwise robust and fairly good in terms of watering needs.

5 Zinnia

Another annual, grown from seed, that is getting a bit of watering, but is otherwise coping quite well with the desiccating breeze and lack of rain. I particularly love this Chihuly-like orange one from a ‘Dahlia Flowered Mixed’ packet.

And now to a real Dahlia …

6 Dahlia ‘Tangerine Dream’

This is Dahlia ‘Tangerine Dream’. It has not turned out exactly as advertised, as it has a surprising amount of yellow showing in the petals as they open. Maybe it is a weather/watering/something else response? Our dahlias have taken a while to get going this summer. They certainly show their happiness for a good water supply. They are so pretty though, they are worth those stretched arms!

Well, that is the last of my orange flame flowers for this SOS post. I am off to do another rain dance, as I keep hearing from others that there is some around.

Wishing you a good weekend … and overnight rain.

Wildlife Wednesday:- Cloudless Skies = Many Clouded Yellows?

One of the Interest groups that I follow on Facebook recently posted about numerous sightings of Clouded Yellow butterflies (Colias croceus) around the Wimpole Estate (National Trust). Since I’ve only ever seen one example of a Clouded Yellow before and that was briefly, at the edge of a cliff on the south coast near Studland Bay, Dorset, I was quite keen to go in search of more.

The information online was that these butterflies were being spotted in areas of hot, dry soil where Lucerne (principally a fodder crop, also known as Alfalfa) was growing. Happily, since I volunteer at Wimpole and know the parkland fairly well, I had a reasonably good idea where to head to search for them. So I persuaded Steve to ‘get his steps in’ by going on an early-ish walk along Mare Way (an ancient track that in part follows along the crest of a chalk ridge between Wimpole and Eversden).

And were we successful?

Well, we did get to see loads of butterflies along the track, especially common blues … but, yes, we did also see some clouded yellow butterflies. I think that, in total, we saw about a dozen over the course of our walk. By the time we reached our turning point (the Giant Throne which is a huge rustic wooden bench at the top of the Multi-User Trail round Wimpole) the sun was blistering hot and we retreated back home for a cold drink.

Sadly, I couldn’t say that we saw any of the clouded yellow in detail, because they flew so very quickly above the shrubby Lucerne, rarely settling. When they did land on the purple flowers, they invariably slammed their wings closed, hiding aview of that brightest yellow.

Here, then, is my best shot from the walk:

You can, at least, make out that this yellow butterfly is not a Brimstone. Its underwings are a pale, mustardy-yellow, flushed with a green wash, with a silver-white spot on the hind wing.

When their wings are open in flight, the yellow really is intense. You can spot them easily against the bleached background of scrub and straw.

Happily, Clouded Yellows are so bright that they show up even at great distances! 🤣 (Apologies, I was running to catch up here):

Once we returned home, I messaged the post author (Graham Damant) to ask how he managed to take such beautiful, close-up photos. The answer was patience (and a long time standing still in the hot, mid-day sun).

Here are a couple of his lovely photos (reproduced with his kind permission):

Photo credit: Graham Damant

Photo credit: Graham Damant

And here is me, hoping for a similar picture 😄, chasing a likely candidate with my iphone:

The quest for clouded yellow butterflies!

Clouded Yellow Butterflies are migrants from Europe and typically arrive here, in Britain, in small numbers each year. However, the species is famous for occasional mass migrations … giving rise to so-called ‘Clouded Yellow Years’.

Apparently, this year the numbers are high, so things are shaping up nicely!

Wordless Wednesday – Cosmic Lemonade!

Cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade’, a flower with fizz?

Pale pastel shades of apricot through to pink flowers, with a stronger, mauve-tinged inner ring

Wordless Wednesday – I ❤️ Rudbeckia ‘Prairie Glow’

Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’

❤️❤️❤️

In a Vase on Monday: – Sunbathing

Well, it has been another hot day in Cambridge and we are predicted to stay parched and cooked for another week at least. Even the marjoram in the vegetable plot is shrivelling up. Finding vase material for Cathy’s (@ramblinginthegarden) weekly meme was necessarily from a selection of our surviving sun-worshippers:

Principally, the perennial sunflowers: Helianthus maximiliani. The patch is tucked into the shade of our neighbour’s house for half the day, so it is looking OK so far.

Then there are some lovely golden Coreopsis grandiflora and a surprise returning scarlet Dahlia coccinea.

These are supported by a head of Nicotiana sylvestris, a sprig of white aster (yes, they are flowering already!) and a stalk of Buddleja ‘Royal Red’

Fillers include leaves of Bronze Fennel, Copper Beech, some of the aforementioned Marjoram and a twining length of purple clematis.

Many thanks to Cathy for hosting In a vase on Monday and motivating me to get out to pick some flowers (before they go over all too quickly in the heat). Click on the link to visit her post and see the fantastic contributions from other flower-loving bloggers.

Enjoy the sunshine … we’ll be moaning about grey days all too soon!

Wildlife Wednesday: Woodpecker bath-time

It’s been hot and it’s certainly very, very dry. Here, in East Anglia, we are a smidge away from a drought declaration. We’ve not had rain for yonks and we are well into a hosepipe ban. So every day I pootle around with a watering can trying to keep the vegetable patch going and refilling several bird baths. These little oases are much in demand and are pulling in lots of varied wildlife. Yesterday I was delighted to watch a family of green woodpeckers making use of a big, terracotta plant saucer that we put out for the larger birds, like magpies, pigeons and blackbirds.

Green woodpecker (Picus viridis) on birdbath

The adult green woodpecker (Picus viridis) seemed to keep watch as she gave her juvenile offspring space to enjoy a cool dip and drink.

Then it was turn about, as the guardian had a go in the bath, whilst the youngster sat on the edge shouting. Interestingly, an adult green woodpecker is also known as a Yaffle, because its loud call sounds like laughing (or maybe cackling).

Then there were three

I was lucky with this tableau as a second juvenile hopped into frame. This one was rather more interested in searching for ants than bathing though. Happily our parched lawn is absolutely riddled with nests.

Wildlife Wednesday – The MMA bumblebee

European Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum) on a rusty foxglove (Digitalis ferruginea)

In addition to the endearing activity of gathering fluff from hirsute flowers like verbascum, the European Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum) is well known for its rather aggressive, territorial behaviour protecting desirable flower patches (containing the likes of said verbascum or foxgloves or stachys). It has certainly been entertaining over the last week or two, watching this little bumblebee zipping round our rusty foxgloves on patrol, using its body-slamming technique$*$ to oust competitors for its pollen and nectar resources.

* Hence the MMA (Mixed Martial Art) reference to in the post title

Wordless Wednesday – Meet the Musk Beetle

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a musk beetle (Aromia moschata). It caused a shriek from my husband as it strolled, in all it dark, 4cm glory, across the lounge carpet. I put it outside on the windowsill and was amazed to reveal its metallic colouring in broad daylight. Since it posed for photos, I obliged.

Look at those magnificent antennae!

Admire the iridescent body paint. What a beauty!

Wildlife Wednesday – Mostly Butterflies

In the garden during June we’ve seen (from top left in rows downwards): Red Admirals, Brimstones, Peacocks, Marbled Whites, White-Tailed Bumblebees, Painted Ladies, Small Tortoiseshells, Hummingbird Hawk Moths, Large Skippers