Red Hot Poker.

As I'm sure I've mentioned in previous blips, our garden is as good as out of bounds as far as I'm concerned.

There is one exception, however.

When I was a child my parents had a very large garden, as was normal in those days and my one abiding memory of that time is the abundance of Red Hot Pokers so, clearly, my parents also liked them. Nevertheless, when we moved to our present home V took charge of the garden and the planning thereof and my sole contribution was to dig up the only lawn so that we were rid of a boring chore - mowing it. Then I remember passing a house in the locality which had a large front garden with Red Hot Pokers blooming so I resolved to plant some in our garden

Needless to say, trudging round all the garden centres in the district failed to discover such a plant. I did find a packet of seeds, though, and bought that. I sewed them in plastic coffee cups and left them on the shelf of the conservatory. To my joy they germinated and started to grow whereupon V planted them out and we have several clumps which flower every June. We thought the rain had affected them this year but they've flowered in the last few days and this morning the yellow petals appeared.

My one and only horticultural contribution to the garden.