Lots to see out in my back yard this time. The Fuchsia is just coming into bloom – these are the first buds to fully open…
…The bush is covered in many more buds that will open over the next week or so and it promises to be a riot of colour this year. This plant is actually a naturalised specimen – a native of Chile and Argentina – that can be found in roadside hedges.
Campanula poscharskyana is another naturalised plant, this time from eastern Europe. Sometimes called Serbian Bellflower, it is a popular rockery plant that has self-sown in my garden…
Finally, here’s a native wild flower…
…Smooth Sow-thistle will grow just about anywhere except in the far north! I have a lot of these growing in my garden this year as we transition into the post-Rowan Tree era. There will be a lot of work done in the autumn but at the moment I’m just letting nature take its course 🙂
I’ve got some other ‘wild’ plants growing in my jungle and hopefully they will be ready for the July Close-Up for Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge 🙂
The first one is Fuchsia magellanica, Debra. Introduced from South America as a garden plant, it can now be found in the wild – though it’s not particularly common. My one came as a cutting from a friend, so it was actually planted by me (unlike the other flowers in this post)!
Last summer I had to have our Rowan tree taken down because of the effects of our drier climate. It was taking too much water out of the soil and beginning to cause minor structural damage to our house. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of confusion to the local birds and the Blackbirds in particular. I can see that their territorial boundaries have been redrawn as a result. However, nature grasps new opportunities when they are presented. I have lots of other wild plants growing in the newly sunlit spaces – Brambles, Dandelions and several types of Thistles. The seed and insect feeding birds are loving it. I can see them right outside the kitchen window – Sparrows, Goldfinches, Blue Tits and the Wren – all busy checking under each leaf to see what they can find 😉
It will have to change a little when autumn comes – I will need to restore some order. But I hope we can continue to ‘maintain’ a wild area in the garden!
Images from Finchley 
I like your flowers for this week’s close ups. Well done 😀
Thanks Cee 🙂
Wonderful specimens from your jungle, Martin. I especially love that first one!
The first one is Fuchsia magellanica, Debra. Introduced from South America as a garden plant, it can now be found in the wild – though it’s not particularly common. My one came as a cutting from a friend, so it was actually planted by me (unlike the other flowers in this post)!
Last summer I had to have our Rowan tree taken down because of the effects of our drier climate. It was taking too much water out of the soil and beginning to cause minor structural damage to our house. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of confusion to the local birds and the Blackbirds in particular. I can see that their territorial boundaries have been redrawn as a result. However, nature grasps new opportunities when they are presented. I have lots of other wild plants growing in the newly sunlit spaces – Brambles, Dandelions and several types of Thistles. The seed and insect feeding birds are loving it. I can see them right outside the kitchen window – Sparrows, Goldfinches, Blue Tits and the Wren – all busy checking under each leaf to see what they can find 😉
It will have to change a little when autumn comes – I will need to restore some order. But I hope we can continue to ‘maintain’ a wild area in the garden!