the running wave

The title of my post today came to me very quickly as I tried to arrange my flowers in Ingrid Atkinson's ceramic vase. A tangle. Trying to separate out each stem from another was a nightmare! The miniature seed heads of the water plantain kept snagging on the tiny leaves of the fumitory and flowers of rosebay willow herb. When I come to clear them away I think the whole lot will lift out of the vase in one big tangle!

Despite the problems I am having with Blogger this post has made it into the airwaves today! Hooray! The flowers are a funny little collection. A sprig of ling heather from the hillsides of the nearby Lammermuir Hills, yellow fleabane (what an unattractive name for a pretty flower!) picked on a walk at Gosford House, and a couple of little heads of fennel and a few fragrant sweet peas from the garden, to give depth and complementary colour. The vase was given to me by my granddaughter for my recent birthday.

The border in our tiny garden is in an in-between phase at the moment and not very colourful, but elsewhere there are pops of high summer colour and I have brought them together in my vase today. The running wave uses Blogger as it's vehicle and they are changing the way a post is created but unfortunately I cannot make the new format work. I can't progress beyond the title! I cannot navigate to the main body of the post to create text. The new template has no prompts for adding photos, weblinks, to format the text, change font etc. It may be my old MacBook that's as fault but I can't do anything about that!! Are any other IAVOM bloggers who use Blogger having the same problems? I have tried, three times, to contact Blogger through their 'Help' prompt and received no feedback or contact whatsoever. This post is using the old 'Legacy' format, which no longer permits any kind of formatting of text, and so after four attempts I have finally manage

It's finally sweet pea time in our garden and although this year's crop is very disappointing and limited, bearing in mind the time and expense I went to in choosing a really sumptuous selection of colours and seeds, I do have a few plants which are producing a modest number of flowers. So, here they are, alongside one or two heads of fennel and the wine coloured flower which I have completely forgotten the name of. I am very much hoping one of my fellow IAVOM friends can remind me what this rather interestingly textured flower, beloved of Piet Oudolf, is called!

In a herby vase this Monday I have parsley, sage, rosemary, (no thyme, before you all break out into song), white lavender, purple lavender, oregano, fennel, chocolate mint (courtesy of Alison at http://floralacre.co.uk/blog-2/ ), apple mint, nasturtium, calendula and rose geranium.  I hope you will agree that they make up a flavoursome bunch! Not long after we first moved to our cottage I planted up an area on the outside of our garden wall, on the driveway, with lavenders, fennel and other plants that I hoped would attract as many pollinators as possible.  It has been a surprisingly successful exercise, bearing in mind there is absolutely no soil there whatsoever, just stones, stones and more stones!  The bees, butterflies, hoverflies and friends are all enjoying the flowers at the moment.  There is, however, one newcomer who I spotted yesterday, that I am not so keen to see.  A very handsome little bug which I had to look up.  The rosemary leaf beetle. I removed an