What's Looking Good In August 2023

Beautiful!

 

Who?
Me?

 

Today I took some photos of the balcony after returning home from taking our daughter's dog for a walk. So here are a couple of photos I took,
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Here are some pictures of the Morning Glories before the day gets so hot they fade away:
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Here are some close up photos of each of the 5 colours I have:

 

They're beautiful @Balc, the blue one looks as if there's a light shining from inside it

 

Very nice! Re the actual blooms, I particularly like the white one.

 

I find it difficult to like one above another! I was rather surprised to see so many colours this year as they are growing from seeds I saved from last year. I had expected the purple one to be the dominant colour, having 5 colours, but with no dominant colour, is quite surprising!

 

Goes without saying

 

Summer flowers despite the autumnal weather :-

Nemesia ...



Campanula isophylla ...



Lobelia ...



Aster fricartii ...



Fuchsia 'Olive Sukier' ...



Fuchsia 'Crosby Soroptimist' ...



Fuchsia 'Welsh Dragon' ...



Persicaria amplexicaulis ...



Rosa 'Eyes for You' ...



Clematis 'Minuet' with very few flowers this year ...



Eucomis bicolor ...

 

Salvia Miracle Red.


Muscari.


Hibiscus Duc de Brabant.




Clerodendrum Pink Diamond.


Dwarf Rhododendron with a late flush.


Crazy Summer, Hosta Purple Heart is still trying to flower while a Nerine has a spike already.

 

Podranea,


Echeveria cante.
Ghostly flowers.

 

This is turning out to be the best year for some years for Morning Glory! I just hope, & pray, we don't get too much wind in the coming month or two as we had one year at least, some years ago. We had a bad storm & the wind brought my beautiful display down to the ground. I could have cried!

I have used new string tied to the top of the balcony railings & to a wire that goes along the length of the balcony above. I have tried other much stronger materials in the past, including one year steel reinforced washing line! That was far too hard & didn't give the results I get with string. It was impossible to cut to length & I ended up looping it around the top of the railings & over the wire above. The plastic coating on the washing line just slipped along the wire above & I had to tie each length to the wire with string to stop them sliding around! A lot of strenuous work! Especially when you don't have a ladder & have to use a chair!

Besides I have to think of what might happen if there were a fire that stopped us getting out of the flat. Being on the ground floor we could go over the balcony railings but if the supports for the climbers can't be easily cut to allow us out in an emergency then we might be in very real trouble! Since I started thinking of that possibility I've gone back to using string! I keep a couple of pairs of scissors on the edge of a hanging basket that can be easily reached from the balcony floor in an emergency to cut the strings & the stems of the climbers..

 

Two beauties open together. so have to capture it quickly as one-day wonders ...