This is a risky operation, for two reasons.

(1)  The last time I published photographs of the summer garden (this time last year, as I recall) ‘summer’ ended as abruptly as it had started and it was ALL MY FAULT.  However, nothing daunted, I’m going to do it again.

(2)  Two or three years back I published a picture of our glorious sunflower and the VERY NEXT MORNING some total frootloop had decapitated it.  Seriously.  Beheaded with one clean knife cut.  They assuredly aren’t all locked up yet, so I apologize in advance to the sunflowers for the first two  photographs because it could be a death sentence …

However, the sun is shining and the forecast for next week is ‘unsettled’, so I went out for a walk in the garden with the faithful  Olympus C-310 …

~~~o~~~

The wall is about six-and-a-half feet high, so the taller sunflower is around 9 feet.

But it’s the shorter of the two that sports the most impressive flowerhead …

A bit further down the walled garden is the old pig feeder that is now doing sterling duty as a herb garden …

Further up, near the bees (they were buzzing busily on the other side of the bushes) the crocosmia (that used to be monbretia when you and I were a lass …) nestles happily in amongst the weeds, which mostly grow unmolested around the fringes of the garden.

Nearby, one of my favourite objects in the whole garden, which I affectionately refer to as The Dead Man’s Hand.  It’s all that remains of an ancient, dead tree that was felled when we first moved in.  A branch had grown around the coping stone on the wall and there was no easy way to remove it – so they didn’t.  And I’m really rather glad, especially as it looks as if it’s showing everyone two fingers …

Many flowers have done their thing, but the seed heads are just as beautiful.

The wildflower meadow is a constantly evolving thing … the poppies have gone, althought the cornflowers persist and have now been joined by campion.

Gertrude Jekyll would surely approve.

‘Yellow’ is the new black, you know …  One of my very favourite colours, and currently being sported by both the gorgeous evening primrose in the rear car park …

… and the achillea ‘Cloth of Gold’ in the front bed, looking for all the world like a  yellow cauliflower.

~~~o~~~

I could have stayed out all afternoon, but the bees were giving Ben a hard time and – you know, it was actually pigging hot out there and I reckoned I’d topped up my vitamin D levels.  Plus, I was wondering if there was any coffee and walnut cake left to go with the cup of tea that was calling me.

Wish the sunflowers luck …