Hemp Agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum) and Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), both plants of damp meadows.

 The flowers of Persicaria amplexicaulis ' Firetail ' burn brightly from mid-July into September. It's a tough shrub that seems to cope with most soils and summers, be it drought or downpour. The leaves drop in autumn and the stems die back over winter then start to push through again in late spring. Late enough in fact to plant the area with the earlier spring flowering bulbs like Snowdrops and Corydalis.

 The triffid-like Echium in the front garden was covered in thousands of flowers at its peak in May/June [see entry dated 11th. May]. A neighbour described it as "pulsating with bees". I noted a few weeks ago [7th. July] that the flowers were still quite plentiful. It has largely gone to seed but even now there are hundreds of flowers providing a plentiful source of nectar. And what a colossal amount of seed it will yield!

 It's a moot point whether Globe Artichokes (Cynara scolymus) should be eaten or left to flower. Depending on your preference they can be grown as an edible or a striking architectural plant. I didn't get round to picking the ones on the allotment. Never mind, the top knot of bright purple flowers is extraordinary.

 The first Runner Beans on the allotment are starting to form.

 A rainy day today but this frog was out and about enjoying the weather.

 Buddleja davidii is known in as the Butterfly Bush because it attracts so many species of butterfly. It also attracts bumblebees. Native to China and Japan B. davidii is one of those introduced species that has run rampant and in doing so does great service to our pollinators.

 Corn Chamomile (Anthemis arvensis). Like the Common Poppy and other "arable weeds" it persists on the margins of intensive agriculture. Curiously another common name for A. arvensis is Scentless Chamomile yet it has the distinctive chamomile fragrance.

 Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) is one of those plants that wanders from where it was planted by way of rambling rhizomes. Not one for the neat herbaceous border but I introduced it to the garden because of its spreading habit.
 The leaves do indeed lather up to make a thin soap when rubbed between the hands with a splash of water. Historically the mild detergent it produces was used by the textiles industry and Soapwort was grown as a crop to be harvested for that purpose. 

 Much as I love ferns the back steps at my father's house are not the spot for a large colony of them. It's suitably shady and rather damp when the gutters overflow so they've established themselves from spores.
 I teased up the fibrous roots and transferred a dozen or so Hart's Tongue Ferns (Asplenium scolopendrium) to a nearby planter. They have a rippling almost serrated edge which characterizes some forms and cultivars of the species. Possibly the Narrow Leaved Hart's Tongue (A. scolopendrium 'Angustifolia')?

 On this day last year I rose early and checked out of my hotel in downtown San Francisco. I took the subway to the Oakland Amtrak station, got a train to Sacramento and connected with a coach to South Lake Tahoe. From the outskirts of town I hiked a steep backroad up to Echo Summit where I intersected with the Pacific Crest Trail to begin a 10 day trek round the Meiss Meadows with a brief excursion into the Desolation Wilderness. [subject of numerous entries in August 2019]
 What a difference a year makes! It wasn't so long ago that I was looking at maps contemplating where I would go this year; probably it would have been another stretch of the PCT to the north of Lake Tahoe. Oh well, it will still be there when this kind of trip becomes possible again. 

 Rosebay Willowherb (Epilobium angustifolium) is in flower wherever it can take hold: field margins, waste ground, railway embankments and disturbed ground generally. Prolific is the word that springs to mind. I noted recently that the white flowered form in the garden is attracting bumblebees [entry dated 11th. July] but this patch was buzzing with honeybees. The white form is sometimes cultivated as a garden plant by wild gardeners like me but in the wild I have only seen E. angustifolium with the vivid magenta/pink inflorescence. 
 In its native habitat of North America the plant is known as Fireweed- not a reference to these fiery hues. It flourishes after areas have been scorched by fire; my father tells me he saw it growing on bombsites all over the East End. Perhaps those conflagrations are one of the reasons it came to be such an abundant weed/wildflower here in the UK. 

 NB Strictly speaking I must correct myself by noting that E. angustifolium has been reclassified as Chamaenerion angustifolium though both names seem to be in usage. 

 I saw Wild Marjoram (Origanum vulgare) as well as Wild Basil walking on the Chiltern Way [see also yesterday's entry]. Both are relatives of the culinary herbs and edible I believe but not as as pungent.

 I saw lots of Wild Basil (Clinopodium vulgare) walking a stretch of the Chiltern Way earlier in the week. I haven't been able to travel very far this year but it's been good to revisit familiar landscapes closer to home. Actually I've been surprised by how much there is to see which I've either forgotten about or overlooked on previous visits.

Spot the butterfly (a Peacock).

 Wasps are pollinators and many other small critters too...

 David Attenborough once said something to the effect that it's understandable that people are concerned with the survival of the biggest creatures like whales and elephants but in a way the survival of the smallest is more important. Nature builds from the bottom up rather than the top down. If we don't have tiny organisms then ultimately we don't have whales or elephants. 

 Two annuals that attract bees in abundance: the pale mauve flowers of Phacelia tanacetifolia and the electric blue flowers of Borago officinalis.

 Getting some decent handfuls of Broad Beans from the allotment. Tasty, but by the time they've been double podded you end up with rather a small portion. I think Runner Beans are the better option where you eat the whole thing, pod and all.
 As mentioned previously [entry dated 1st. July] the Broad Beans are growing among a sea of self-seeded Borage. Perhaps this reduces the yield and it does make them harder to pick- the stems and leaves of Borage are bristly and the flowers are covered in bees. I'm not bothered, happy to see all the flowers and bees.

 The white flowered form of Rosebay Willowherb (Epilobium angustifolium 'Album') seems to be the bumblebees' favourite plant in the garden at the moment.

 Nice to be pottering in the garden for the first time in a while.

 The enormous Echium in the front garden is still flowering two months on from the last time I wrote about it (11th. May). Most of the thousands of tiny flowers have gone to seed but there are still enough to attract a constant coming and going of honey bees.
 I'm happy to say it became something of a local sensation with many passers by stopping to look at it and quite a few people made a point of coming to see it when word got around!

 The back garden is pretty overgrown by this point in the year (in a good way). It's more flowery in spring and early summer but certain plants do their thing later in the season like the Acanthus mollis under the apple tree. Tall spikes of white flowers with brownish/ purplish bracts emerge from the mass of large, leathery leaves.

 The Privet hedge is a feature of gardens up and down the land- the fragrance of the flowers is one of the evocative scents of summer. Generally the species grown is Ligustrum ovalifolium which came to us from Japan and Korea originally. Our native L. vulgare is better for wildlife but L. ovalifolium is more amenable to clipping and shaping hence it's popularity.
 It does attract bees and there is a great deal of it so it's worth holding off with the trimmers until the flowering has finished. Perhaps your neighbours will peek out from behind their net curtains and tut but never mind.

 Babington's Leek bursting into flower.

 I'm interested in ideas like forest gardening, companion planting and intercropping. In a small way I experiment with them on the allotment. For example the Runner Beans are underplanted with Nasturtiums. The groundcovering Nasturtiums form a living mulch retaining moisture and suppressing weeds (and are an edible in their own right). The Runners climb above them.
 The next bed has three rows of Broad Beans, mostly Bunyard's Exhibition which is a tall variety (about 4 feet/1.2 metres). Once they got going I seeded the bed with Phacelia, the fast growing annual often used as a 'green manure'. It doesn't grow as tall as the Broad Beans so I speculated they might co-exist reasonably well. Then I noticed a lot of Borage had self-seeded from last year. I love Borage so I was loathe to weed it out. Broad Beans have a tendency to flop and there is a school of thought that says plant them close together to support each other. I hadn't done that but the thought occurred to me that the Borage growing among them might have the same effect.
 The combination of the three might work or it might not. Little experiments like this are what intrigues me about growing plants.