Soft

I couldn’t resist sharing and re-sharing some bumblebee photos for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge from Tina on the theme “soft “. Bees have had a pretty tough year – the late, cold spring certainly did not help.  But I do love watching them. Providing food for bees from March right through till the first frosts in October is a great way to ensure you enjoy bees in your garden.

bumblebee

The current hits in my garden are oregano, comfrey, borage, poppies and runner beans. Lupins are popular earlier in the summer, as can be seen below. Even now the last remaining lupin flowers are being visited by carder bees.

bumblebee

Buff tailed

Carder bumblebee

Buff tailed

Wildflowers, fruit trees and herbs are also vitally important food sources.

Red tailed bumblebee

REd tailed bumblebee

Cuckoo bumblebee

Carder bumble

 

Silent Sunday

Ripening apples!

Time to Relax

If we want time to relax, we enjoy heading to the coast. Dugort beach or Pollawaddy strand is situated on the north coast of Achill Island near the village of Doogort. Achill Island is an island on the west coast of Ireland, joined to the mainland by a bridge. Slievemore hill rises above the strand, though it was covered in fog the day we were there.

Dugort

The sun battled hard but the fog won out in the end.

Still a lovely place to visit and one to which we hope to return.

Dugort

Dugort

Lens-Artists Photo Challenges – Time to relax

Wordless Wednesday

Flying dog!

Silent Sunday

Doogort Beach, Achill Island, Mayo, Ireland

Harebells

Harebells, Campanula rotundifolia, are one of my favourite summer flowers. What is not to like – a beautiful blue colour and shaped like bells. I have cultivated forms of Campanula in my garden but nothing beats this native one. The native ones are found on dry grasslands and dunes. These ones were  growing on a dry sand/soil bank adjacent to some machair (a specialised, rare and sandy habitat formed from windblown calcareous sands) near Belmullet, Co Mayo.

Harebell

Joining Cee’s flower of the day.

Harebell

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Cooling

Both these dogs were finding the weather very warm, when we were in Wales last week. Any bit of shade, that may have some cooling effect was sought out!

Wheelbarrow shade

 

shade please

Picton Castle Walled Garden

This week the Lens Artists Photo Challenge theme is Wonder.  P. A. Moed Creative Exploration In Words And Pictures invites us “to create a post that captures a moment, a feeling, a place, a person—which filled you with wonder.”

Walled garden Picton Castle

Last week, we were in Wales, and one of our days out involved a trip to Picton Castle, a 18th century stately home (that was a previously a medieval Castle) in Pembrokeshire. The highlight of the day was the magnificent walled gardens.  It is definitely a place to fill you with wonder on the amazing world of plants. The shapes, colours, textures of the flowers, from hot red to spikey blues and greys.

Spikey greys

Thistles

A pond plant

Brigt pink

Shapes

Colour

Hot reds

Patels

pink rose

Ferns.

Fernery

Fernery

A herb garden and succulents.

The garden has only three full time staff members looking after it (and the rest of the grounds). And some volunteers. They do an amazing job.

Sculptures

This week’s Monthly Meet Up Photo Challenge is Sculpture. We were in Wales last week and had a lovely visit to Picton Castle in Pembrokeshire (more to follow during the week). Within the walled garden there was this lovely sculpture. The wings of the seed head catch the wind and it moves around.

Sculpture at Picton Caslte

There were some more lovely willow and wood structures in the adventure garden. Here is just a little taster.

Wooden mushrooms

Willow house

Silent Sunday

 

Rose