
Although the weather has not been quite what we would want for July, the flowers in my backyard are flowering well, especially the sweet peas. Naturally, flowering plants like plenty of sunshine, but not necessarily tropical temperatures and this is certainly true of sweet peas.

Good daylight is essential and I have planted mine against a southwest facing fence. However, to flower well they prefer cooler temperatures, moist soils and a feed once a week with tomato food or similar. It’s been a good season so far for them.

Of course, the heavier rain showers ruined the delicate pink roses and also battered the big old hydrangea. The larger, soaking wet mopheads weighed down some of the sappier stems as the whole bush became a drooping mass of pink mopheads. I nipped out and cut back some of the stems where the flowers were hitting the ground. The plant’s loss was my gain and I filled a vase with them together with a few white lilies that have also done well this year.
One flower that can be cut for the house, but is too much of a faff for me, is the daylily. I prefer to leave them doing their thing in the garden. At least their blooms speckled with rain made a vibrant, almost zingy photograph.
