colour, flowers, garden, lazy

I'm a lazy gardener when it comes to flowers. I'll happily spend the time sowing vegetable seeds, but when it comes to flowers, it has to be bulbs, perennials or flowering shrubs.

I was looking at what was flowering in the garden, with no effort, and was quite pleased. The Golden Rod is

giving me plumes of rich yellow frothiness, and it was a freebie! I do love it when you get something for nothing, and this was a hidden bonus.





Many of the large stores have skips outside the rear of their premises, and David and I have asked a few times if we could help ourselves to things in there - lengths of wood and ailing plants being the favourite. On this occasion, it was a poor dwarf Rhododendron, looking very sorry for itself, its leaves curling and yellowing. It was in dire need of a little tlc, not throwing in a skip.



So, we brought it home, lavished some free love on it, and planted in the semi shady front garden. The following year it rewarded us with delicate pink flowers.



In mid-summer, however, the bonus arrived, the Golden Rod burst into bloom, growing up through the low-lying leaves of the Rhododendron. Beautiful - a splash of false sunlight in the essentially shady north-facing garden.



The other colourful note out there is the delightful lace-cap Hydrangea. There are two of them, both a gift from a green-fingered friend who had rooted some cuttings, and they have the most delicate shades in their blossom. Again, no effort involved - hurray!!!