Purple, pink and yellow

So they promised us a long hot summer. Or is that just the cider adverts hoping for the best? This week has been pretty much what we've been used to getting from our British summers; lots of cloud cover, short sunny spells followed by showers and the odd rumble of thunder. In short - pretty much perfect weather for our gardens and the wildlife that lives in them.
Thanks to the weather for providing the essential ingredients that made it possible for the flowers to thrive, without which the bee would not have had such a splendid backdrop to pose against, resulting in the new picture Debbie supplied for my Talk of Bees blog entry. I only had one other bee photo which I'd already used. I flipped and skewed the original picture to give it a new look but it still didn't look much different. I've now retrospectively added the new bee/foxglove picture alongside my little poem, which I'm much more happy with now.
The gardens are looking very good this year, alive with colour and life. The resident gardeners here are always trying to grow new things, experimenting with new seeds and cuttings.
The mice have returned, creeping out of the undergrowth to join the equally mouse-like Dunnock, who can often be seen hopping through the leaves to get to the oats left out for him.

Bombus and the impostor

We're not easing off on the save the bees strategies this year. These little guys are massively important in our ecosystem. Here is a white tailed bumblebee visiting one of Debbie's foxgloves. We're trying to provide nesting places as well as favouring plants they like. My sister and my dad are the hands on gardeners in my family. Debbie is my resident horticultural expert (she watches Gardener's World y'know). She loves being able to name flowers at a glance, although she still makes the odd gaffe. She's been envious of a flower in a neighbour's garden recently. The other day she was passing that way hoping to catch the neighbour to ask about getting a cutting. She was in luck - the woman was talking to a friend.
"Excuse me. Could you tell me what that flower is?" Debbie asked.
"It's a rose," the woman replied.
"Oh, but..."
"It's plastic! I told my husband it would look ridiculous!"
The neighbour's friend exclaimed incredulously,"I've been admiring that for ages!"
Debbie slunk away.