Salvia has purple or white flowers from June to October and is a magnet for bees and butterflies. It is a member of the largest class of plants in the mint family (Lamiaceaea) It is commonly called sage but not all varieties can be used in cooking. Some will make you hallucinate!
Scabious ‘Butterfly Blue Beauty’ is highly attractive to butterflies and bees. It is a perennial that will form clumps. One flower remains on it despite a couple of frosts! It looks rather more ragged than these, though.
Senecio Serpens or Klienia is also a clump forming perennial belonging to the family Asteraceae. It is native to South Africa and is a succulent that requires little water - therefore it prospers in dry conditions. Its foliage is grey-green – some describe it as blue - and it produces small white flowers in the summer. It is easily propagated from cuttings - or breakings - as we discovered accidentally.
Squirrels Sciurus carolinensis) of the grey variety were introduced to UK from North America in the late 19th/early 20th century and have displaced our smaller native red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) They are able to eat a wider variety of food including acorns which they can digest but the reds cannot. They are entertaining acrobats and noisy when annoyed when they make a loud chittering noise which continues for several minutes. They are inveterate thieves and are adept at accessing bird feeders. I love seeing them race around the trunks of trees, up and down and around and around and am quite happy to feed them. We have some of the sleekest squirrels in Berkshire!
Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are also welcome in our garden. From the milk chocolate coloured young to the glossy adults they are noisy, quarrelsome, social birds and always fun to watch. We've never seen a murmuration of starlings like this below.
Syringa usually known as Lilac belongs to the olive family (Oleaceae) it is native from south-eastern Europe to eastern Asia. It is well-adapted to cultivation in temperate climates. Colours range from white through pink and lilac to deep purple. They can be small – around 6’, or tall – around 32’.
Sunflower seed head
. . . and of course we have spiders and slugs and snails . . .
Click here for more Ssssssss