Mr Bee collecting off the top of an Echinacea.

Evening Primrose, a great and easy plant which provides beautiful yellow blooms early in the evening. Grows tall up to 4 feet tall and once you have them in the garden they are prolific self seeders and pop up all over the place. Perfect for me as I have a traditional cottage garden style so hap hazard is good. But of course if your into a more regulated style you can always life and replant where you want them. 

Here are the next years plants growing from the seeds released the year before. They will happily grow over the winter and are hardy so will be quite safe from the cold winter months. Then in the spring will grow rapidly and produce the attractive yellow blooms

They seems to want to grow anywhere so sometimes i remove the small plants from in between the blocks on the patio, I will carefully remove them and pot them to make sure they are okay before replanting back into the garden somewhere.

Below a few pictures of them around the garden. The plants will flower for a long time, can be up to two months. The height can be seen in the pictures. I love Evening Primrose's and they need little or no maintenance. Great resistance to slugs and snails as they don't seem to be interested in them. Just remove the dead flower buds each day to keep them flowering. 

Alcea, or to give it the common name, Hollyhock, Beautiful tall flower which needs good light and sun. Again grown from seed and is flowering first year. 

Alcea
Plant

Alcea, commonly known as hollyhocks, is a genus of about 60 species of flowering plants in the mallow family Malvaceae. They are native to Asia and Europe. Wikipedia

Scientific name: Alcea
Lower classifications: Alcea rosea
Rank: Genus
Higher classification: Malvaceae

Echinacea, more commonly know as a Coneflower. Beautiful purple flowers on long stems that last for weeks. Easy to grow hardy Perennial once established will come back year after year. Easy to maintain and they need very little maintenance during the year. Just cutting back at the end of the season  to remove the dead stems and leaves from the base. They can be susceptible to attacks from slugs and snails as they find the leaves nice and tasty. The will decimate a plant in a few nights. 

Echinacea are also available in other colours, Yellow, Orange and white to name a few. The purple ones tend to be more hardy in my experience. Generally will do well in the middle of the border as the flower spikes can get quite tall. I have grown all mine from seed, they are easy to propagate. I tend to May time as there is more room in the greenhouse and then bring the smaller plants outside to get the most from the sun and growing time. Then pot them onto bigger pots and over winter in the greenhouse so i have nice healthy plant for the next season. 

Very popular with Bees, as gardeners we must do as much as we can to provide food and habitat for Bees. I always try to have the plants that attract butterflies, insects and of course Bees which are in decline 

Mesembryanthemum in the dusk just before closing for the evening, Using the natural light to take the picture. No flash, I hope you like it

Here is the first photo of the day, Mr Bee collecting his nectar from a Agapanthus. I hope you enjoy it.

Well where does this one start..... This part of the garden has gone through many phases of development over the last few years. Originally a bird feeder pole just knocked into the ground as you can see from the picture below. Not very exciting and to be honest. Boring. So thought that I would make it into something a little more pleasing on the eye.

So what was I going to do? I looked online to see what I could do. Well I wanted to do some kind of feature, what I was not so sure. I did some looking on the internet for ideas and nothing really jumped on me. I like to have the birds coming into the garden along with any wildlife, although the resident Hedgehog is no longer with us. I decided to begin with that I wanted some kind of raised bed that was easy to maintain to stop the bird seed growing in the grass. 

Above another view prior to the work being carried out. Early in the season. 

Above, The first result of the evolution of the bird feeder. I bought a raised wooden bed from a local garden center, £18 which is not too bad. Firstly treated with a preserver to protect the wood. Whilst that was drying I took the grass off the surface of the ground to leave just the earth. Before placing the raised bed I placed a weed stopping membrane to stop the weeds coming through the stones that I was laying afterwards. After laying the membrane I constructed the now dry raised bed on top. Once together I put the poles in for the two feeders securely into the ground then placed stones on the top of the membrane. 

Above, now completed and the bird feeders assembled. Around the edges Rudbeckia placed around the edges to add some base level colour during the summer months. I did think about putting in some Spring flowering bulbs but at this stage decided against it. 

Rudbeckia
Plant

Rudbeckia is a plant genus of 23 species in the family Asteraceae. The species are commonly called coneflowers and black-eyed-susans; all are native to North America and many species are cultivated in ... Wikipedia

Scientific name: Rudbeckia
Rank: Genus
Higher classification: Heliantheae
Lower classifications: Rudbeckia californica, Rudbeckia laciniata,Rudbeckia occidentalis, Rudbeckia maxima, Rudbeckia hirta, Rudbeckia pinnata, Rudbeckia triloba, Rudbeckia alpicola, Rudbeckia fulgida

Now completed and looks quite good and the birds seem to love it. I was very happy with the result and check back again to see how it changed again at the start of this year.

Zinnia, another great little bedding plant that provides simple and bright flowers throughout the summer. Easy to grow and great in dry conditions too. There is however issues in young plants with fungus and bugs. So once removed from the protection of the greenhouse and hardened off look for signs of potential issues in the plants. Zinnia's are great for borders and containers alike and are not the favorites of slugs and snails, apart from the little nibbles here and there. Every year I grow Zinnia's as they are a favorite of mine. This year I have more than normal as I had a great success rate from the seeds, over 100 plants in total. With 6 plants costing anything from £3-£6, a few packs of seeds and a bag of potting compost costing less than £10, I think it is much better to grow your own. 

Most of the plants this year I have placed into pots. A few in the borders in the gaps at the front. They can be used for the center of the pot or around the edges, although Zinnia's can get quite tall so you would need to use something that will be bigger in the center. Plenty of variety in colour, just remember to dead head so encourage more flowers to emerge.

I hope you enjoy the pictures and thank you for your time. Any comments or feedback is welcome.

As you can see above a very striking effect in a basket with a mass of pinks and oranges. Although it would be nice to have an even spread but of course it never works out like that. 

This time in a pot, a very good spread can be achieved and with careful dead heading they can be prolonged to last all summer. This pot is coming to the end of the season and still the Mesembryanthemum's are still flowering well. Although the recent thunder storm played havoc with the rest of the pots inhabitants. 

A nice combination above with Linum's in the middle of a basket of Mesembryanthemum's.  

Like is said they look good in pots and planters. As you can see, fill a pot full. Add some Cosmos into the center for some height. The Nemesia will trail over the edges to give side colour. 

Also in a window box just filled full of Nemesia with some Mesembryanthemum's around the front for added colour. When growing from seeds, remember to pinch out the top to encourage the plant to bush out. otherwise it will get tall and leggy reducing the flower heads it produces. Unfortunately Nemesia are also the favorites of slugs and snails. 

Again the description below from Wikipedia. Is another easy plant to grow, I will focus on Mesembryanthemum's in another post.