voodoo magic

Ok so you need to look hard, but this is my Voodoo lily flowering for the first time in 4 years (Sauromatum venosum). I bought it when I was on my stag do in Amsterdam as it is an amazing plant, and can also do this thing where it flowers from the corm ie you don't need to plant it.

Although amazing I will always remember the first time it flowered, as one morning after waking up and going for breakfast I was met with this horrendous smell....think of a pack of dogs which have pissed all over your flat, have left, the windows have been shut and the heating cranked up to give it that special scent. mmmm, yummy.

I love it mainly for the leaf which it sends up late every year, a nice big tropical looking thing. A touch late for a secure survival as I always forget where it is and often almost put a spade through it. however its very pretty flower is with us for a few days..

Ive also been enamoured with Salvia 'black and blue' a new purchase from Brum... the photo doesn't do it justice but it has a great combo of the blue with the black stem making it a little primordial, and very jungle...

After lusting all last summer over Helianthus salicifolius I bought some from mail order early in the year....all the other plants I ordered came up, but the Helianthus didn't. Was I diddled?  did I have the Helianthus kiss of death? who knows....but yet again I swear I will never buy pots of earth mail order again. So after finally giving them up for dead I bought new ones from Cotswold Garden Plants (as recommend by Mark and Gaz, thanks!) They have a great choice, and I even got a Begonia luxurians which has been on my must buy list for ages. Mail order was quick and easy and the plants are fab, do use them.

Some poppys even escaped my cull and they have the most amazing deep magenta pink. Bees are currently fighting over them. I wish more could grow but I need the space to plant things...

 Red hot pokers... yes they can be a bit cottagey, but I think they do look a bit tropical and like giant Aloes... Flowering fabulously at the mo, salvia hot lips in the background

This was the big weekend project, new path and the final link to the Jubilee walkway. It was always an odd area, it was quite big but rubbly, then my brick storage area and not knowing what to do we stuck the objects trouve sculpture in the middle and a few hundred geraniums. Now the path snakes through to my artificial mound, and the old path has become stepping stones.

The species foxgloves are also looking good, this one has something ancient about it

So most things are now in (phew) but the weather sucks..... one week I'm sneezing from the cold I have as it was been so wet and chilled, then I'm too hot and sneezing from hayfever!

Ive been looking back at last years pictures and I think growth is at least 2 weeks behind what it should be, if not 4. I hope stuff goes big and strong before the wind and slugs destroy it. I am beginning to get the NGS worry seeping in, I hope it grows! needless to say I'm going to start piling on the pelleted chicken manure...

The dahlia bed with one battered Musa and aother that is almost dead from the wind :(

PS just as a side there is a great thread on HTUK about one persons garden development. Lovely garden, lots of bamboos and one to aspire to!
http://www.hardytropicals.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13266