Days getting shorter already. Here spring seems to have sped past, lucky for us when for so many confinement dragged interminably. The weather is more summery as well, after a cold spell in June we have had heat and a coupe of tremendous overnight thunderstorms, and today it has settled to cloudy and not too hot.

The Prairie now is a blaze of colour. Most of the height comes from the Grasses, but the Perovskia seems to grow taller each year despite assiduous pruning(!) and there are tall pale lilac spikes of Veronicastrum as well.

The Echinacea continue to hold their flowers well

Last to flower of the Prairie Salvias, salvia Sclarea Vatican White, also a good self seeder!

After a tentative start in the Gravel Garden, the Hemerocallis are now abundantly in flower everywhere.

Gentle Shepherd, with its creamy flowers in the Gravel garden and by the gate

Vibrant orange in the “hot” bed above the fosse

and a fantastic range of shades in the Prairie, yellow through peach to pink and darkest burgundy.