I found it difficult to stop taking photos this week, there is so much happening in the garden. The sunshine has prompted everything to put on their best clothes and shout out for the paparazzi.

These beautiful un-named Asiatic lilies grew in a pot last year and have done even better in the ground. They mingle with with blue and red salvias and the forthcoming Echinacea buds and shriek to be noticed.

The more demure and sultry Lily ‘Landini’ keeps a lower profile but is just as stunning.

The pollen free ‘Elodie’ may lack any fragrance but is nevertheless a statuesque beauty and has done well in the same pot for two years so must be tough and hardy.

The Inula helenium(?) mentioned in my previous post is a big hit with bees and hoverflies and provides a perfect landing pad.

The Alstoemerias grown last year as immature bare roots from The Daily Telegraph are now established in a well drained raised bed and have rewarded me with a wonderful crop of tall yellow/orange flowers which last well for at least two weeks in a vase.

It is a little disappointing that they are all the same colour but on the other hand they probably look better on their own and certainly make a statement.

These egg shaped Allium sphaerocephalon are the last to flower and do so in a most unusual way. The papery bud splits open to reveal a totally green flower head which gradually turns purple from the top down. They have done well in a pot, taking over from the narcissus and tulips planted with them.

The pond surface is now covered in water lily leaves and water soldiers keeping the water clear and providing shelter for the fish who have no eye lids and hate the glare of the sun.

The Sempervivums in pots around the pond are beginning to send up their strange, almost pre-historic looking flower spikes after which, the centre of the rosette dies but not before giving me plenty of babies to replace them.

The more I see the flowers of Dahlia ‘Twynings Smartie’ the more I am beginning to like them.

The creamy white flowers and dark foliage of Twyning’s After Eight’ are an unusual combination which could easily have come from the ‘Bishop’ series. Perhaps it started life as ‘Bishop of York’.

And finally……the beautiful simplicity of Dahlia merckii, a species from which many modern hybrids and cultivars have no doubt been bred. Easily grown from seed and apparently hardy in the ground, the lilac colour blends well in a mixed border. I find they are a bit floppy and need the support of a cane or other plants around them. Lovely!