Kitchen garden revisited

The sun was not exactly splitting the stones yesterday but it was a bit brighter so I thought I would pop into the Kenwood Kitchen Garden to see if anything had changed from my last visit some weeks ago.

Well, for one, in the long, wide hedge that divides the upper lawn from the lower one, the lavender is growing up right through the creeping cotoneaster. I have never seen that before.

In the herbaceous beds the blue thistles were quite alarmingly blue….

While the cardoons had shot into the sky and were etched against the swirling puffy white clouds.

A deep herbaceous border runs along the high red brick wall that separates the garden from Hampstead Lane. And in it I found this very curious sort of drooping conifer bush with red bottle brush ‘flowers’ and long thin ‘cones’ half way up its stems…… If anyone has any ideas what it might be I’d love to know.

Also these very pretty pink flowers with their jewel like stamens – and I know that I should know what they are…

And snuck in on the quiet, but actually looking, this rather fine, red curly leaved  weed….

The bees were still in action in the garden but I caught this guy making a very comprehensive job of the thistle plant on the way home.

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