This enormous yellow and purple lupin has doubled in size since last week. Blogger Tony Tomeo said it reminded him of ‘mardi gras’ and I think this it is even more garish and fabulous than last week. Behold the fabulous lupin.

Next up, a little red bug. I removed this cardinal beetle from the inside windowsill and popped him out onto the honeysuckle. Couldn’t resist getting this snap of a bugs view of the garden in the process. The stick is whittled hazel, I made it last year and its remarkably useful for poking and moving things about. The beetle is a common garden insect, and has the most marvellous colour.

Next up, snapdragons behind the bench. This spot gets enough evening light for a few snapdragons to bloom. There are often bees buzzing about here, feeding on the flowers, and I love to sit and watch them.

Thing four is the meadowturf. Regular readers may recall we put this in a few months ago. It has been through a pink phase, with lots of red campion and ragged robin, and now more whites and yellows are coming through, with the ox-eye daisies emerging. It’s a very pleasing sight.

Thing 5 has to be the roses around the door. Every June when these come out, I blog about how wonderful they are. And every June, they are wonderful. The purple clematis is a fab contrast, so I’m very grateful to the previous gardener who planted these beauties.

My sixth thing is this allium. It’s a bee magnet, and has a fabulous form.

And that’s it for my Six this week. Pop over to the Propagators blog to see what’s growing on this week.

In other news, this week at work we released the 9th film in our series about the future of UK forests, this one is on the need to nurture newly planted trees. I’ll post the link below. And speaking of ‘nurture’ I’m heading out this morning to meet the Shared Earth Learning directors and discuss next steps for ‘project hedgerow‘ and ongoing plans to nurture a love of nature. It’s good to be busy, but I also fancy lounging about later, and so if this sun continues the hammock may come into play this afternoon.

I hope whatever you’re doing, you have a lovely weekend.

Jen x

Wood for the Trees part 9: Discussion of Sustainable Forestry, Tree planting in the UK and the need for strategy, planning and maintenance to nurture woodland. Silviculture expert Graham Taylor talks to sawmill manager Tom Barnes about the process of forest management, and the issues facing UK woodlands. “Tree Planting in and of itself is not a solution to our problems”