Flowering outside

 This plant is years old, an agapanthus, it's really late this year, loads of lovely leaves, but so far only a few buds, normally it gives loads of blooms. I will keep checking. The nemesia in my raised bed behind are very colourful, I have more bedding plants to go in. I have my flat bird table against the raised bed, I am using a bowl on the stand, the bird table belonged to my mum, so I won't ever get rid of it. This is next to my wildlife pond, now a nice looking corner.

My back bed is now summer ready, I have popped 7 fleabane/ erigeron daisies, they will fill the front of the bed. The shrub on the right is a snowberry, I have had it a few years, it was growing in the back flower bed in front of the greenhouse, it has doubled in size since I moved it last October, and so many more berries on it. All I need here is more bark to bring the level up and stop weeds. This back bed I am hoping to keep simple, with the daisies growing and filling the space, I will probably put in some pansies in the winter months, spring is taken care of with all the bulbs, which I leave in the ground.

This square bed is starting to look good, most of the bigger plants are new this year, so many blooms to come, both my lupins have flowers growing, I'm pleased they are not the same colour, I have a dahlias to go in the middle, in the frame, I hope to plant it in the coming week. I am aiming for a jumble of colour here, with most plants returning next year, these should be more winter interest as well. 

This side bed again has loads of new plants, I removed the salvia hotlips as they grew far to large for this area, and swamped everything. I love all types of daisies, this one at the far end was even better as I only paid £1.25 for it, sadly it was pot bound and looking very sad, so I popped it into a bigger pot, cut all the flowers off, it's been planted for a week and is looking good. I will soon have loads of asters to fill the gaps and give colour here. The pink rose is growing nicely, the yellow ones in the garden will bloom soon, along with pots on my shelf, so much colour. 

My tub is again full of colour, some of these plants came from the bed outside of the back door, there are two different fuchsias one each end. The coleus in the smaller pot will grow huge and colourful, the deep red plants had 3 plants in one pot, so the other two are planted at the back of the big tub. 

I normally have a bigger pot with a begonia in on this table, it's still on the greenhouse, the bigger begonia is now under the table, last year it stayed just outside the greenhouse, that area is full of veg. These new pots with sempervivums do look good here, I have a couple more in small pots to add to this display.

I have in the past 14 years tried to be as organic as I can be in our garden, the balance has been really good, by adding the veg beds this year, I was concerned about our lovely balanced eco system. The only pest control I use are slug pellets, in my flower beds, I don't use them around my veg, slugs and snails are munching in the veg beds, I am trying to pick them all out, I look for both every day. Weeds again are not a huge issue, I do have more this year, mainly in the veg beds, probably from the top soil purchased to fill beds. I try and grow from seed, which cuts back weeds coming into my garden in pots purchased. I strongly believe it's better to be outside every days keeping on top of pest and weeds. I am hoping to have frogs in my wildlife pond, so far nothing much lives there, the aquatic plants are doing well and keeping the water clear.

I dug out my hotbin composter, the compost is lovely, but I have more woody bits in there, when I only had flowers, I often added woody bits to keep the bin topped up. This year all the woody bits are being added to a pile in a corner, for a bug sanctuary, I will have enough green waste to keep the bin full, I dig the bin out twice a year, it's closed and get warm inside which speeds up the process.