Today there were swifts overhead, with goldfinch, blackcap, robins and blackbirds singing as the butterflies flitted about. And as usual when I open the back door, a hungry cat appeared.

We’ve had a heatwave, with unprecedented ‘red’ weather warnings for three days, record breaking temperatures, and two huge thunderstorms. I’m pleasantly surprised to see so much colour in the garden after such unsettling weather.

The sweetpeas have found their way up the tower. One minor issue is how overgrown the path is, so it’s a bit of a mission to go pick them… and we need to pick them to keep them flowering and stop them going to seed.

The new rose patch is looking wonderful. We’ve had some spectacular sunsets and sunrises lately, along with the extreme weather, and the colours of the rose patch reflect those tones.

The ‘Barnsley baby’ dwarf mallow is a wonderful colour, this is a new plant to us and we want more of these, it’s durable and floriferous and in your face fantastic.

You’ll have to trust me that this is the home of an Ashy mining bee as it was a camera shy little thing.

And finally, a small white butterfly on a verbena by the pergola, and a little female blackbird perched above it.

That’s my six on Saturday. I’ll share this with the happy gang of garden bloggers hosted by the genial host Jim at Garden Ruminations. Join them to see a wonderful collection of Six on Saturday selections.

If you’d like to hear the sound of dawn chorus in our garden, try the bird song guessing game I made: Dawn Chorus Quest uses open source bird data to share and enjoy British birdsong, and features a recording of the dawn chorus in our garden on #InternationalDawnChorus day last month.

Have a lovely week

J xx