March - Our Forsythia Arch
April - Lush Tulip Ronaldo
May - I love the Paeony with its glistening raindrops.
June - I bought these Bellis daisies as spring bedding with the little Saxifrages, and they have just gone on and on - well worth every penny!
July - My Monarda 'Cambridge Scarlet' - What a statement!
August - My Helenium Wyndley is out and is covered in flowers. It has grown really well this year and I love the centres, which change from yellow to fuzzy brown - ending up looking like teddy bears noses!
September - My Rudbeckia, Goldsturm I think, reminds me of the last but one house George and I lived in, as there was a garden on the corner with a complete border of these which popped their cheeky faces up over the hedge each autumn, making us smile, and every year since I've said I'll get some. Well, at least I have one now.
I had to have two flowers this month. I have always fancied growing those big, showy Dahlias, but have never done it before. I bought a couple of dahlia tubers this year and stuck them in - or George did - and totally forgot about them. Then all of a sudden last month, I saw this perfect pompom, shining out among the Verbena bonariensis, with quite a lot of promising buds. I'm so thrilled - mental note to buy more Dahlias next spring!
October - My Michaelmas Daisy, Aster Andenken an Alma Potschke. A bit of a mouthful, but fabulously floriferous and so-o unashamedly pink! I bought this (like many of my plants) partly because bees love it, and it has been covered in bumblebees, honeybees and hoverflies. Love it!
November - I adore bulbs and this year I thought I'd try something new, Acidanthera. Some time after they were planted, I read that they may not flower in Britain and should be grown in a conservatory, so as we live Oop North, I was thrilled when they started flowering in late October. They are so pretty and dainty, like little ballet dancers bobbing about in the breeze, making me smile.
