Verbascum

This verbascum plant grew up in our grass (can't really bring myself to call it a 'lawn'!). We let it stay and it has now rewarded us with a 6 ft flower stalk covered with yellow flowers and great grey/green furry leaves. You can just see a second flush of wisteria flowers in the background.


Saw my mum off early afternoon after giving her a quick tutorial on how to use her new satnav. I'm hoping she made it to Gosport and is not still on the Basingstoke ring road. She's doing something quite brave (and exciting) this week so hope it goes well for her.

Managed to enjoy a bit of reading in the garden this afternoon. We could hear the music from a Mela being held in the local park. It was very loud but sounded like good fun. Made an interesting sound track to my book about Dublin in the 1950s.....

A surprise spot in the garden was a female stag beetle. I've not seen them this late before around us - I wonder if all the cold and wet weather in June slowed their emergence. A visiting red admiral posed quite well as it sunned itself but the new wooden fence did not provide a very photo-friendly backdrop. Loads of bees and hoverflies around. The tiny shield bugs are still on the leaf where they hatched out on Friday. Will try to keep track of them for a few days.