Summer 11

Contemplating celebrity, beauty and butterflies . . . or Life with a hypochondriac dishwasher.

Sunday 30th August, 2015

At last I am back to my routine blogging week - starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday (PS I wrote that too soon.  I didn't realise that it would end up being an eight day week).  For the second week in succession, the week started with some butterfly excitement.  The first interesting event was the first sighting of a wall brown in the back garden.  It perched very obligingly on a trailing tormentil flower and waited until I fetched the camera and took some photos!

Later there was another first sighting of the season.  I was carrying a muck bucket of ferns down from the top of the garden and saw a holly blue near the old senecio plant.  It had disappeared by the time I returned with the camera but I am confident about my identification.  I saw the bright blue of the upper side of its wings as it fluttered past, and the distinctive under side of the wings - pale silvery blue with tiny black dots - when it settled on a flower with its wings in an upright position.

I waited for some time to see whether the holly blue would return.  There was no sign of it but a white butterfly flew overhead and I waited to see whether it would settle.  I haven't seen either of the "cabbage whites" yet this year.  Just as the white was about to settle on the oregano flowers a meadow brown arrived and chased it into the next door garden.  I have never associated butterflies with aggression but the meadow browns can be quite fierce.

Then there was another bit of drama.  A sparrowhawk swooped down from the plantation and crash landed in the hawthorns where the little birds like to perch and enjoy the morning sun.  I shouted at it and it flew off.  It didn't appear to have a victim in its talons so it must have missed its intended prey.  The poor little birds lead a dangerous existence with threats from raptors above and cats below.  I should admit that I am not confident about identifying hawks and am assuming that it was a sparrowhawk because they are the most common and are often seen in the glen.

After finishing my session of fern cutting, I checked for butterflies again.  There was nothing of interest in the back garden, just meadow browns and a speckled wood.  Next I checked the mauve buddleia by the garage.  I was delighted to see that the painted lady had returned and this time it had its wings nicely spread. 

While I was taking photographs I counted four small tortoiseshells, three painted ladies, two peacocks, two red admirals and a comma - all feeding on their favourite shrub.

On Monday morning we were distracted by a dishwasher panic.  Our two and a half year old dishwasher refused to wash the dishes on Sunday and claimed that it had an :05 error.  According to the manual this indicated a power module failure and the advice was to turn off the power switch and water and phone for a technician.  

Fortunately the shop where we bought the dishwasher didn't do repairs and there was no reply when Tim phoned the number of a repairman which they gave him.   That doesn't sound fortunate, but it gave me time to search for information on the internet . . .  trying to decide whether it was better to opt for an expensive repair, buy a new appliance or just wash the dishes by hand.  I found some advice on a repair forum which gave suggestions for less serious error messages and I decided to have a bash.  If our DW was already dead then I couldn't do any more damage.  First I checked for any water that hadn't drained from the machine.  There was only about half a cup so that probably wasn't the problem.  Then I tried pressing the reset button for three seconds.  The display changed and showed 1 minute of the program remaining.  So I tried resetting again and this time the display cleared.  I pressed the start button and it started.  Then it spent a couple of hours washing an empty load because I was too scared to interrupt its cycle and risk another error message.  Now it is working normally again - fingers crossed.  I don't know why it thought it was terminally ill.  Do other dishwashers also suffer from hypochondria?

It was a grey, overcast morning and there was even a slight sprinkling of rain although it was supposed to be dry.  There didn't seem much point in mowing until the grass had dried out so I trimmed some more ferns instead.  When the sun eventually came out the butterflies returned.  First there was a small white butterfly on the wildflower bank - a first sighting.  I think it is a small white (Pieris rapae) rather than a large white because of the paler wing markings.  It is also probably a male because the females have more forewing spotting.

About midday I saw a little woodmouse near the hawthorns in the back garden.  I spotted it again later, scampering across the grass between the white buddleia and the wildflower bank.  It reminded me about finding a little body under the rowan a few days ago.  The murderous moggies had struck again.   I grieved for the little dead mouse but almost immediately noticed two large slugs and murdered them without a second thought.  This made me wonder why we react differently to various species.  Is it just that I see the slugs as a threat to my plants or is it more basic?  Do we empathise more with species which are closer to us genetically?  It is often difficult to distinguish between instinct and rational or learned behaviour.

After I had finished my gardening session, I went down to check on the mauve buddleia again.  It was alive with colourful butterflies.  I didn't even try to count them.  The most interesting - and most frustrating - was a second sighting of the little holly blue.  It settled briefly on one of the lower flowers - in the worst possible place for a photograph.  The surrounding foliage made it difficult to focus and the sunlight reflecting off the pale under side of the wing washed out the detail.  I only got one photo and it was very disappointing.  But I did get plenty of photos of the various nymphalids.  This is the age of celebrity culture and these are definitely the celebrities of the Manx insect world with their brilliant colours.   The contrast between the glowing colours of the upper side of their wings and the camouflage colours of the under side of the wing is interesting.

Two views of a small tortoiseshell.

The butterflies with the darkest underwings are the peacocks.  This one - sitting on the pale flower buds of the sedum spectabile - isn't very well camouflaged.

I learned something new about butterflies.  They may look as though they just flap around in a rather haphazard way but they have very impressive acceleration from a standing start.   I saw a peacock sunbathing on the stone under the bird feeder and went out for a closer look.   It had its wings folded upright and I decided to disturb it so that I could check its identity.  It took off so fast that my eyes couldn't focus on it in time to see the upper side of its wings.  Later I saw a red admiral on the wall under the bird feeder.  Suddenly a cat emerged from the raspberries and launched itself at the butterfly.  I swear that butterfly took off so fast that it was about a yard away by the time the cat landed.

I was still feeling rather philosophical and my thoughts turned from the beauty of nature to the nature of beauty.  Why do we find bright colours beautiful?  Is it because they indicate health?  Are they useful indicators when choosing food, or even a mate?  We use colour in an attempt to make ourselves more 'attractive'.   We think we belong to a higher species and are amused by the amazing courtship displays of the birds of paradise but we are not so different.  Young, and not so young, humans paint their faces and wear bright clothes . . . and perform silly dances too.  It is not just "going out and having fun" . . . it is a courtship display.  We have more in common with other species than we like to admit.

Tuesday started with a trip to deliver a carload of ferns to the tip and a visit to the supermarket.  Then I pottered around waiting for the grass to dry before starting the mowing.  I took yet more butterfly photos but they are all rather similar to the ones I took earlier in the week.

Then I started mowing the back lawn, pausing every now and again to pull out some weeds or cut back a few old foxglove stems.  I didn't want to finish the back too quickly because the shadier front lawn needed time to dry out.  I miscalculated.  The rain which was forecast for the evening arrived early in the afternoon - before I finished mowing the back garden.  So I had to put off the rest if the mowing for another day.  I seem to have done very little so far this week apart from photographing butterflies and waiting for grass to dry.

Wednesday started with heavy rain but the clouds blew away to the north and had almost disappeared by ten o'clock. 

 I cut back the ferns at the end of the ditch near the gate and then decided that the grass was dry enough to finish mowing.  More clouds arrived, some looked threatening, but it didn't quite rain.  During the sunny spells the butterflies were out and about again.  The big five (red admirals, peacocks, small tortoiseshells, commas and painted ladies) were taking advantage of the buddleia nectar again.  Unlike the meadow browns, they are prepared to share flowers.

We have had 4 1/2 inches (115cms) of rain so far during August.  The Japanese anemones are still flowering profusely and the hydrangeas are looking good.  Some of the prettier late summer weeds have also enjoyed the damp summer.  The wild angelica is so lovely it should really be a recognised garden flower.

It attracts all sorts of weird and wonderful little insects - even a few tiny ants.  I wonder whether they like the pollen or nectar - or, maybe, they are thinking of starting an aphid farm.

I thought that Gentle Hermione might produce the last rose of summer but then I found that the first bud on one of the Cecile Brunner cuttings that I planted in spring had won that honour.

On Thursday I finished the ditch ferns.  It was not much fun as it involved crawling under a couple of shrubs which suddenly doubled their size after some nearby trees were cut down.  Then I started on the ferns growing on the nearly vertical bank above the ditch at the top of the garden.

The days are shortening more rapidly now as we approach the equinox and sunrise was at twenty past six this morning.  I was up in time to capture some pink tinged clouds.

Saturday was the first race day of the Manx Grand Prix.  It was time to take advantage of the road closure and spend a couple of hours trimming the hedge by the road.  I had planned to finish this post for the blog in the afternoon but I was feeling punch drunk after the second round of my fight with the dishwasher.  After working perfectly for a few days, it suddenly went on strike again yesterday morning.  

This time it complained about a different error code (:18) before reverting to :05 again.  The first error code referred to water level problems so I removed the inlet hose, cleaned the in-line filters, cleaned all the filters inside the machine and checked the waste water pump.  After that it started OK but stopped during the cycle.  So I reset it and tried it on a shorter cycle . . . and it grudgingly agreed to wash the dishes.  I only run the dishwasher every two day so the next round of the big fight will take place tomorrow.  I think the DW is beating me on points at present.  I may have to get a technician in after the Manx Grand Prix ends or this blog is going to turn into a diary of a mad housewife instead of just being the diary of a mad gardener.

Summer 10

Mainly Ferns, Butterflies and Birds

Saturday 22nd August, 2015

The week started with some butterfly excitement.  I had just seen a red admiral on our white buddleia and was pointing it out to Tim when a different butterfly landed on a nearby flower.  I rushed out with my camera and took my first comma photo of the year. 

I thought it might be my first sighting of a comma but when I checked my butterfly list I remembered that I had seen one briefly in early April - but it flew away before I got a photo.  The common blue sighting last week has brought my list up to 9 positively identified species in the garden plus a small copper which I saw at Langness and a small heath in Brookdale.

The blackcap family is still around every day.  They are finishing the last of the blackcurrants and frequenting the raspberry patch but once the fruit is finished we won't see them until next summer.

After shopping on Tuesday morning I took yet another (and probably the last) photo of the juvenile blackcap.  

In the afternoon I cut a car load of ferns from the sides of the ditch outside the laundry window.  I started on this section of the ditch because the cats disappear into the vegetation here when I am trying to chase them out of the garden and I can't see whether they have returned home or are lurking under the ferns smirking at me.  I may be verging on cat paranoia as I have even considered the purchase of a water pistol but I doubt whether I would be able to get close enough to the cats to give them a worthwhile drenching.

Rain was forecast for Wednesday afternoon.  We wanted to start walking again so we went out early for a short walk up Skyhill.  We hadn't walked up the hill since July 6 and noticed quite a change during the past six weeks.   I got the feeling that the year was already starting to wind down.  There was no bird song, not even the previously incessant cooing of the wood pigeons.  The silence was broken only by an occasional gust of wind rustling through the trees. 

The path was littered with the soft pollen cones from the conifers and there was already some fungi growing at the side of the path.

When we reached the end of the path we could see a thick layer of hill fog covering the top of North Barrule on the east side of the glen.  It looked as though it extended below the mountain road.  I hope there isn't too much fog during the next couple of weeks because it could disrupt the practice sessions and races for the Manx Grand Prix which start at the end of the week.

On the west side of the glen I could see some animals in the distance.  They looked too big to be sheep.  With the help of maximum zoom, I discovered that they were the ponies that we have seen on previous walks, grazing at the edge of the heather moor beyond the old deserted upland farm, The Neary.

It started drizzling almost as soon as we walked in our front door - earlier than expected - and continued raining all day.  The only bright moment was a brief visit by two goldfinches.

On Thursday I did another session of fern cutting.  This is likely to be the story of my life for the next few weeks - fern cutting followed by trips to the amenity centre to drop off loads to ferns to be recycled into compost.  It seems a waste of organic matter which could be used in the garden but when we let the ferns rot down with the leaf mould in the past I had to spend ages weeding small ferns out of the areas where we spread the leaf mould.  I am not efficient enough to make proper compost which heats up sufficiently to kill the spores.

On Friday, after our routine shopping trip, I was back in the ditch . . . with my new best friend.  Robins are often referred to as the gardener's friend but this little chap was the friendliest robin I have ever encountered.  He (or she) must have hatched late in the season because most of the juvenile robins have already moulted.  This one still had all its baby feathers.

It hopped around in the ditch by my feet, checking for any small spiders or bugs that dropped off the ferns.  It even perched on the front of my boot a couple of times.  I had to be careful not to tread on it.  

Another favourite perch was the edge of the big muck bucket that I was loading with ferns.  

On one occasion, I had my hand on the edge of the muck bucket and it landed right next to my hand with the claws on one foot gripping my finger.  I dug out a few weeds and found some small earthworms but he wasn't interested.  Either he didn't recognise them as food or he wasn't particularly hungry.  He stayed with me for at least two hours - until I finished working in the garden.

There was also more butterfly excitement.  When I walked past the mauve buddleia on my way down to photograph "my new best friend", I disturbed a painted lady feeding on the nectar.  I went up onto the patio to see whether I could get a photo.  Eventually I spotted it but it was feeding with its wings upright - possibly due to the overcast and windy conditions.  So I had to settle for an underwing photo.

I checked the plant again later when the sun came out but I didn't see the painted lady again.  Now my butterfly total is up to ten in the garden plus two on walks.  Not too bad considering there are only 20 butterflies found on the island, of which just 16 are fully resident.

This morning when we left for the amenity centre to deliver a load of ferns the little robin was back on the wall outside the gate to greet us.

I cut another section of ferns before the forecast rain arrived at morning teatime.  I was working up at the top of the garden well away from the young robin's territory but I was joined by an adult robin.  He just observed my efforts from a safe distance.

This is a "before" photo.  The ditch at the bottom of the bank is completely hidden under the overhanging ferns.

And this is an "after" photo. 

 I will cut the ferns which are growing higher up on the bank after I have finished exposing the rest of the ditch.   I am about three quarters of the way along the ditch now.  The ferns  overhanging the ditch are the most important because I need to be able to get into the ditch to clear out autumn leaves, but there are masses of other ferns as well.  I calculated that it would take me about fifteen sessions to trim them all back.

There is never much to report regarding flowers at the end of summer.  My favourite rose, Gentle Hermione, has been producing the occasional flower ever since the main flush.  This bud is probably the last.  The roses haven't enjoyed the windy summer.  The outer petals have all been damaged, probably bruised before the buds open, when they are being thrashed around by the gales.

The crocosmia seemed to survive the wind unscathed and put on a good display but they are near the end of their flowering season although they are still being visited by hover-flies.

While I was wandering around looking for something to photograph, I saw this sprig of tutson berries glowing amongst the ferns.

I have always loved fuchsias.  I remember wanting to grow fuchsias on a steep bank at the end of our house in Natal.  I thought it would be rather attractive if they overhung the path below.  The plan didn't work.  The bank was probably too hot and dry.  That is no longer a problem, fuchsias love this cool, damp garden in the glen and even come up from seed and sometimes need to be weeded out.  This is one of the spontaneously self-seeding shrubby fuchsias.  The red and purple ones are more common but we also have these dainty pale pink ones.

Summer 9

Intimations of Autumn

Sunday 16th August, 2015

I have decided to label the posts as "summer" until the end of August although there are already early signs on autumn . . .  like a slight chill in the early morning air, heavy dew and even some condensation inside the bedroom window in the morning, as well as these ripening haws on the thorn which I saw through the dining room window while I was birdwatching.  

I doubt whether autumn will be much different from this alleged summer of 2015 which has been mostly cool and much wetter than average.  The plants have enjoyed the damp weather though.   Every day this week I have been out in the garden with my snips and cut back a large muck bucket of old growth on the perennials and weeds, but the garden isn't looking any neater yet.

The birds that I was watching when I noticed the berries on the hawthorn on Thursday morning were a female blackbird and a couple of robins.  The blackbird spent some time on the corner of the lawn - sitting on an ant nest.  This "anting" behaviour is weird and this is only the second time that I have watched a blackbird writhing around on an ant nest, preening, scratching and eating some of the ants.

Even this young robin was fascinated and kept approaching the blackbird to study its unusual behaviour.

Then an older robin arrived.  This is the time of year when they start to defend their territories and drive out other robins.   There was a short threatening flutter, followed by a brief face-off until they both decided to pretend that the other bird wasn't there.  

On my way to the laundry I looked out of the study window and saw two blackcaps in the raspberries, so I fetched my camera.  When I returned the only bird around was a juvenile blackbird. He (or she) was sitting on the frame eyeing the remaining fruit. 

When I returned from the laundry I noticed activity in the bushes and tapped on the window.  Three blackbirds flew out.  I don't mind sharing the fruit with them but they do tend to strip the bushes, leaving nothing for us and the small birds.

It was a good sunny "butterfly morning" so I went out to examine the buddleia near the garage.  At first there was only one meadow brown enjoying the nectar.  Then it was joined by a small tortoiseshell, and then another small tortoiseshell arrived, and then two more - four in all.  On my way back to the house I noticed one sunning itself on the Sky dish and got a close-up.  The photo was rather disappointing because of the glare from the background.

Then I saw a white butterfly in the back garden, and a hummingbird hawkmoth on the white buddleia.  I went out on another butterfly hunt, this time in the back garden.  The white butterfly circled overhead a couple of times but didn't land in the garden.  The only one at ground level was a meadow brown.

The first flowers are opening on the knapweed, a good plant for attracting butterflies so we may get some more visiting the garden soon.

Friday was mainly cloudy and overcast after overnight rain.  The Island just got the edge of the weather system that brought heavy rain to the mainland.  But we had butterfly weather again on Saturday.  There were no butterflies on the mauve buddleia but I saw a peacock sunning itself on the bedroom windowsill.  There was no point in taking a photo because of the bright background.

Later I saw a small butterfly up on the wildflower bank and a white butterfly feeding on the oregano by the summerhouse.  The white one was a green veined white.  They seem to be by far the most common whites in the garden this year.

The small butterfly was more exciting.  It turned out to be a female common blue.  The first blue that I have seen this year.  I can't post an accurate life-size image because the photos will be displayed as different sizes on phones, tablets and computers but this is one of our smallest butterflies - with a wingspan of approximately 32mm.

Today was pencilled in as mowing day and was supposed to be "Dry and bright" but turned out be overcast for most of the day with one or two brief showers.  I wandered around the garden looking for things to photograph.  The clouds looked rather threatening so I decided to put off the mowing until tomorrow and did another session of clearing under the hawthorns behind the house instead.

There are very few new flowers at this time but I found a patch of astilbe which hasn't been photographed yet this summer.

Then I wandered around looking for insects.  One of the Manx bird sites sometimes features insect photos under the heading "The little stuff".  Some of the subjects are named but the photos are usually accompanied by this comment "Dunno, by all means tell us . . . "  Insects are difficult because there are such a vast variety.  For instance my little insect book says there are 5000 species of hover-flies alone.

This is one of the smaller varieties of hover-fly which I have seen in the garden.  I am not going to attempt to identify it!

And here is another "unknown".  The only yellow flies I could find on the internet were yellow dung flies - but this doesn't look quite  yellow enough and surely not even a stupid fly could mistake a knapweed flower for dung.

Summer 8

Our visitors have flown back to Canada and even the birds are deserting us!

Tuesday, 11th August, 2015

Life is slowly returning to normal after an exciting week with our Canadian daughter and granddaughters.  I took very few photos after the walks just over a week ago in Maughold and at the Point of Ayre.  We were rather busy and the weather wasn't great - wet and windy at times.  We had two inches of rain during the first week of August.   There was also an assortment of the usual dramas which always seem to occur when we have visitors - no water due to a burst pipe one night, electricity off for routine maintenance one day, one telephone refusing to work (during a phone call from the USA) due to a faulty DSL filter, trying to work out how to coax a reluctant scanner into action, thinking that the router was faulty when we lost the internet connection . . .  until we got a message saying that we had used 80% of our monthly broadband limit of 40GB (in one week) and needed to click on the notification - but we survived.  My solitary photo during the week was of two rain-spangled webs between the patio railings.  The tits usually check the railings for spiders but they must have missed a couple.

 Now I have no excuses left and have to get stuck into the garden work.  The garden is in desperate need of some radical tidying after being neglected during the preparation for the visitors.  The ditch also needs to be cleared of ferns and the hedges need attention too.  My first task was to mow the grass which has been enjoying all the rain and then I started cutting back some of the Welsh poppies, oxeye daisies and foxgloves which were setting seed.  I don't attempt to stop them self-seeding but do try to cut down a bit on the amount of seed.

The end of summer is approaching now the visitors have departed . . . and the birds are gradually deserting us too.  Some of the finches, which nested nearby and visited the feeder every day during the breeding season, are leaving to join flocks feasting on the thistle seeds in the countryside.  The green finches and lesser redpolls left first and I haven't seen a goldfinch for almost a week now.  The siskins are still coming to the feeder and the chaffinches, like the poor, are always with us.

Today (Monday) I am starting to record the number of birds for the Garden Birdwatch scheme.  So far this morning I have noted:
1 wren, 3 robins, 4 coal tits, 3 blue tits, 2 great tits, at least 8 siskins, more than 14 chaffinches, 1 blackbird and and 2 blackcaps.

The blackcaps are very camera-shy.  I wonder whether this is due to the fact that most of these little birds migrate from the Mediterranean area and North Africa to breed in Britain.  They may be more accustomed to having guns pointed at them rather than cameras.  Usually they duck down into the vegetation in the raspberry patch or fly off to a nearby tree when they spot me looking through the window with a camera.  But this little female was too busy eating to notice me.

I have only seen female and juvenile blackcaps on the raspberries but I did spot a male near some unidentified berries outside the conservatory.  I grew the bramble-like plants from bud cuttings given to me by a friend.  They were already growing in the garden when she moved to a new house in Ballaugh and the estate agent told her that they were a type of hybrid berry.  It seems most likely that they are a variety of tayberry which is a raspberry/blackberry hybrid developed in Scotland.  The other possibility is a boysenberry but it think that has finer thorns.  They don't fruit very well but that may be because they are growing in a rather shady place.

This is the fruit.

The leaves are similar to a bramble but larger.

I am in a quandary about the bird feeding.  During the past two weeks I have discovered two sad little fatalities in the garden - one siskin and one coal tit - obviously the victims of marauding moggies from nearby gardens.  I thought we were doing the birds a favour by providing peanuts, sunflower seeds and niger seed to supplement their natural diets.  But the good might be outweighed by putting them at risk by attracting them to a garden where they could be targeted by cats.

We haven't had a problem before but there are more cats living in the neighbourhood this summer.  Also it is possible that the birds are more at risk now that we are providing sunflower seeds and niger seed.  Both these foods tend to spill onto the ground under the feeder and this makes the birds more vulnerable when they are scavenging for scattered seed on the ground.  I think I will try to construct a fence around the feeder to stop the cats from lurking under the raspberries and pouncing on their victims.  But if there are more fatalities we may have to consider restricting feeding - and only put out food in severe weather in winter when the cats are less likely to be outdoors.

It continues to be a disappointing summer for butterflies in our garden.  Apart from a few meadow browns visiting the oregano in the back garden, I haven't seen any for the past couple of weeks.  The buddleia shrubs which are commonly called "butterfly bushes" are devoid of butterflies and the first flowers are already fading.  We had one rather insipid pale mauve buddleia when we first moved here but there must have been cross-pollination with other colours in neighbouring gardens because now we have a variety of colours from white to almost purple. 

PS (Monday afternoon) I thought of making an collage of the different colours of buddleia flowers but found it was impossible to capture their true colour in the sunny conditions this morning.   When I went out again this afternoon to make another futile attempt, I discovered that I had spoken (or rather written) too soon about the lack of butterflies.  It was a bit windy but on the big buddleia on the sheltered side of the garage I saw one red admiral . . .

. . . and then one small tortoiseshell . . . 

. . . and then not one but two peacocks!

There is definitely no shortage of common red soldier beetles - Rhagonycha fulva.  They are the most common soldier beetle in Britain and there are plenty in our garden.  When I checked their name on the internet I found out some amusing trivia.  Apparently they have been described as "hogweed bonking beetles".  According to Matthew Oates, Invertebrate Ecologist for the National Trust, "Its name was first entered into the Invertebrate Site Register as a joke, but despite a complaint from a Yorkshire vicar, it stuck. The name was eventually edited out from the register but not before it had passed into entomological legend. It also has a polite name: the Common Red Soldier beetle."

Soldier beetles are named after the red uniforms of British soldiers in the past.  Some of the bluish-coloured species have been called Sailor Beetles.

The little beetles may be particularly fond of bonking on the hogweed but they enjoy the pollen of the wild angelica in our garden - and I have also seen them on the echinops.

Magnified image.

Sharing the wild angelica with some hoverflies.

On the echinops.

The hoverflies were also visiting the Japanese anemones.

As well as the beetles and hoverflies there are still plenty of bumblebees around so there is no shortage of pollinators in the garden during these last weeks of summer.  And thinking about bumblebees reminds me of an impulse item that I was tempted to buy at the supermarket.

There were some Lamium silver plants on display and they had been reduced to 99p.  But the bumblebees visiting the flowers outside the shop really sold this attractive groundcover plant to me.

When I went out to take that photo I was slightly disappointed to see that my bumblebees where not showing any interest in their new present.  There were plenty around but they were all on the oregano flowers!