IAVOM ~ Bring Me Sunshine

 

A lightening pick, plonk and photograph for this week's 'In A Vase On Monday' snipped in a break in the showers. I'm in dire need of some sunshine or failing that at least a break from the wet stuff that seems to have been stuck overhead for the last week or so! There's only so much housework that I can tolerate. In my milk bottle instant sunshine has been provided by :

• The yellow daisy of anthemis 'E.C. Buxton' which started life as a cutting on a propagation course I took at a local nursery. It is a trouble free perennial it's only fault is that it opens a shade of yellow that's just a tad too bright for me. It does fade though to a much more attractive softer yellow. It flowers throughout the summer right up to the first frosts and is most generous with its flowers.
• A single of stem of the half hardy perennial rudbeckia 'Sahara' - a favourite of mine. It has sadly struggled this year from sowing onwards and didn't appreciate the wet August. Even the molluscs who usually show disdain for the slightly rough leaves have shown an unwelcome interest.
• A couple of flowers of cosmos bippinatus 'Purity' - I love the never ending supply of white flowers throughout the summer but the plants are lanky and need support. The search is on for shorter white flowering cosmos for next year.
• Finally a flower of my new to me this year rose 'Bathsheba'. Her colour and shape have lived up to my expectations but sadly not her scent but that could be down to my nose. After some minor surgery on that aforesaid part of my anatomy a few years ago I'm convinced that my scent of smell has diminished. I often confer with rose loving friend on the scent of roses. She has some of the same roses as me which is most useful but she does not grow this one. I was most relieved when after a close up and personal sniff of my rose she told me that she wasn't picking up much scent either. Earlier this summer I was stopped in my tracks in her garden by the scent coming from rose 'Eustacia Vye', so it has gone on my list of plants to investigate further over the longer nights. 

Thanks must go to Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' for her gentle encouragement to get out there and snip each week.  It's great to see what other people are cutting and enjoying especially as the year goes on. This afternoon's forecast thunder and lightening haven't materialised yet and there is a most welcome break in the rain so I'm off outside for a while before domestic goddess duties in the kitchen call.