The rainbow after the rain

Pulmonaria and Galium odoratum (Lungwort and Sweet Woodruff to give them their country names!)

Last Monday, my neighbour and I (the gardening team) were standing having a chat about the garden and agreeing about how much we loved interplanting veg with flowers.  Another gardening neighbour (he who is responsible for growing swathes of cabbages around the flats and uprooting shrubs to do so) stopped to tell us, "Why are you growing all these flowers? You can't eat them; you should rip them out and plant vegetables." I smiled at him and briefly explained the need for biodiversity, pollination and beneficial insects. To which he replied: "All you need for pollination is wind."  **sigh**  On which point, we had to amicably agree to disagree.

Those same flowers and pops of colour made going down to the garden yesterday morning a real pleasure. Warm sun on my back, raindrops on the leaves, bees buzzing and birds singing. (There's a little coal tit that has taken to visiting the garden as well as the starlings and blue tits).  Wasn't Thursday's rain just fabulous?!  Although I did feel sorry for all those garden teams over at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea frantically planting in the pouring rain to finish gardens for Sunday's Flower Show judging.

So the garden here has had a really good soaking; that should perk up the plants for quite a few days and give a boost to the veg and  help to settle in newly planted perennials and herbs. I've got strawberries and the lovage to move this evening, hopefully the damp soil will help them to settle in. There are some wonderfully vivid colours in the garden at the moment so today I'm just going to celebrate my rainbow of flowers.

Oh, and by the way ….  I rest my case m'lud. Bzzz, bzzzzz.