Wordless Wednesday - Trundling Along

The essential accessory for the flower show enthusiast

Wordless Wednesday - Wooden Fence

Wooden it be nice...

As seen at Hampton Court

 Umbrellas: The traditional symbol of the Hampton Court Flower Show, this year only needed for shade

The RHS Hampton Court Flower Show takes place every July, which usually means it is a sea of mud (coming, as it does, just after the rain magnets of the tennis at Wimbledon and the Glastonbury festival). This year, all three events stayed dry... isn't that one of the signs of the Apocalypse?

SENSATIONAL PURPLE

I may have gone a bit mad last year when shopping for bulbs. There was a great deal on Alliums at Hampton Court Flower show on the Warmhoven stand. You paid the money in advance and they sent the bulbs at the correct time for planting. But, I forgot what I had ordered so, I also bought some more at the RHS Wisley plant centre.

So, this year the garden has been full of alliums. The first to come up were Purple Sensation and Aflatuense.  They are pretty similar although Aflatuense is the taller of the two.

The cold winter slowed things down a little and the buds only started to appear in late April.

26 April 2010

Within a few days the buds start to open.

They hardly had time to unfurl when the bees decided to visit.

23 May 2010

6 June

All too soon flowers turn into seed heads.

Some flower heads formed these bulbils. Garlic does this too but, I've never seen them on alliums before. I eased them off the stalk and will plant them. Hopefully they'll produce new allium plants for next year, although I doubt they will be full sized blooms, that should take a few years.