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Sunday 29 June 2014

Never judge by appearances!

Delicate pale pink blossoms reminescent of diaphanous tea dresses (do such things still exist these days?) or maybe beautiful lingerie adorn a bush at the bottom of our garden......


Their fragility though is not all it seems and far from being ethereal and gentle this plant is a bit of a thug!


It is in a bid to take over the border and to dominate the other plants and the hydrangea and the spirea in front of it are in danger of being vanquished by this tyrannical plant.  Never judge by appearances it seems would be the lesson here!


Speaking of hydrangeas - here is the wonderful deep blue one we brought from France, because we loved its unusual almost indigo blooms,  just coming into flower - now resolutely pink!  Maybe we should have brought some French soil to plant it in!  We have tried feeding it with some special stuff but it has other ideas and prefers to remain pink.


The lavender alongside our driveway this year is an amazing blue not really captured in this photo - it is almost luminous.


 The bees and butterflies seem to like it.



And my sweet peas are still going great guns and here chez Marigold we have little vases of them everywhere giving the place a wonderful perfume - now they are another delicate, dainty flower but at least the plants simply climb up the netting and are in no danger of taking over like their friends the lavatera!

Many thanks for all your kind comments on my recent Bus Pass trip posts.  I did yesterday have a look at some different backpacks and am wondering whether to make my next trip to a different part of Devon or Somerset reachable by bus from here or whether to go somewhere further afield and start from there.  I did have the idea of revisiting all the places I have lived during my 70 years but that might take forever by bus as they range from Liverpool to Suffolk and the Forest of Dean as well as Surrey, Salisbury and round here not to mention France which is not possible on the bus with a Bus Pass - but watch this space for further travels with a backpack!

15 comments:

  1. I know what you mean about the thuggish behaviour of Lavatera, it took me ages to get rid of one. I now have the small variety. I do like the flowers though.

    Your Lavender looks wonderful. Mine is doing a lot better this year, after a gardener pruned it by chainsaw!

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  2. I love lavetera but daren't plant it here as I know from previous experience how dominant it likes to be!
    If you ever decide to wander as far as Suffolk with your backpack do let me know :-)

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  3. lovely photos. I know what you mean about the lavender, i have several and one is like yours, almost glowing.

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  4. Your lavender is beautiful mine is tiny compared to yours!

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  5. lovely pics! I think hydrangeas have a mind of their own, ours are a different colour every year. This year we have one plant which ranges in colour from bright blue to pale pink all on one bush, and it was all pink last year... C x

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  6. Wonderful colour in your garden. I've heard that planting a few rusty nails in the soil around a hydrangea will aid in bluing the colour.

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  7. The lavetera flower is beautiful ~ I love the lavender ~ absolutely gorgeous and the sweet peas too. I planted a perennial sweet pea last year and thought it died, but it's back, very tall, and has some buds on it. I hope it blooms!
    I enjoy visiting you here. You have such beautiful photos.
    Thank you for visiting me, and yes, I am a Miss Read fan for sure! Such delightful reading. :-)
    Enjoy your day,
    Anne♥

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  8. Lovely garden colour especially the lavender. All those travel plans sound great to me, hurry up off you go !!!

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  9. Your garden is beautiful. I'm trying desperately hard to grow sweet peas again this year for their flowers without much success. I thought at first it was because it was too warm, but I noticed on a walk with my youngest the other day a fence with masses of sweet peas that looked like they were growing wild. I may get brave and ask the owner if I can have a pod or two. Your lavender is lovely too, I was amazed ours survived the bitter winter we had. Wishing you a wonderful week.

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  10. Your lavender is beautiful! I just got my first bunch of sweet pea yesterday, it's such a pretty flower. My hydrangea is just coming out and it's a bit early to figure out if it's colour has changed but it doesn't look as blue as it was, I don't want it to be pink, I want it to be the beautiful blue it was when it arrived.

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  11. Oh you know, that invasive lavatory can be a boon in gardens where not much else grows! I would give it houseroom! I have no sweet-peas this year, yours are wonderful. If you pot hydrangeas in a different soil they revert to their original colour, I believe. Ericaceous I think? Lxx

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  12. The lavender is so wonderful.
    Thank you fro all the beautiful pics, I love flowers and I am always happy to discover a new one as the first you showed us.
    Miss.

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  13. beautiful! lavender is so fragrant! I will be watching the cyclists wizz past :) I know what you mean about them all being the same haha
    Lucy x

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  14. Stunning flowers you have there! I actively encourage the thugs in our garden, I planted a Rambling Rector this year - I like to see things have a good chance against the slugs.

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  15. Someone has planted lavatera amongst the wild flowers at the bottom of the lane here. I have no idea who and for two pins would remove them in the depths of night. I noticed yesterday that they've even cut back the natural growth around them (there are two) to focus on the incongruous pink lavatera surrounded by natural grasses. I like the flowers and 'in the right place' etc etc but, as you say Jane, it is a thug and should never have been planted by the side of a stream amongst native flora. (Apologies for the whinge but you hit a nerve.....)

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