And it was all going so well.

After asserting my point that I don't 'do' red in the garden in my previous post, look what went and bloomed this week.

What a rogue! This was meant to be a delicate pink variety of the Poppy called Viktoria Luise, and it's red, BRIGHT red!  My heart truly sank when I saw it, as I nurtured 6 of these from tiny plugs, and they are now scattered throughout the garden after I planted them out in Spring. I was crossing my fingers that maybe this would be the only red one, but a bud from one of the others is showing a tiny glimpse of the petals beneath, and they're red too. Sigh. So, should they stay or should they go? What do you think?  I'm really undecided at the moment. They are gorgeous, but my garden is based on a palette of pink, white, purple and blue, with splashes of yellow. I fear a few red poppies on their own will look terribly out of place and spoil the peacefulness of the garden. The blooms are huge though, true saucer size, and after all my effort of growing them on, it will be a wrench to hoist them up. And this one does look rather nice against the yellow Lady Stratheden Geums. Decisions, decisions!

Another decision that had me pondering was the state of one of my Clematis Montana Freda's. One day, it was healthy and about to start flowering, the next, it looked like this.

At first, I thought a stem might have snapped or got damaged and therefore died, but looking at it closely, that wasn't the case, and two stems had actually withered up. I don't think it was Clematis wilt, as there was no blackening of the leaves, and Montana is meant to have a good resistance anyway, but it did seem strange. I decided against removing the whole plant, as one half still looked okay and instead I cut the two dead stems right back to the base. Thankfully, the remaining stem is doing really well a week on, and another stem has appeared at the base. So, fingers crossed, it might have been saved.

Now, I can hardly complain about the next garden event, because it had me captivated for a whole weekend, but there were some rather messy consequences to deal with after.

We were visited by a flock of starlings, with a vast amount of baby chicks. When I say vast, I'm talking in excess of a hundred. The noise they made was deafening, but I just couldn't stop watching them, especially when they descended on the garden, turning it into starling city! They really were everywhere...at the feeding pole, on the table, shed, fences, pots and around the ponds. Oh, and the washing line made a handy little perch too!

It was quite funny to see the slim adult birds feeding the huge pudgy chicks. The one above even dripped water into the chicks beak...awww.  It seems they were only here for a pitstop though, as they left for new pastures on Sunday evening, leaving me with rather a lot of, ahem, mess, to clear up! 

Since the weather has been just gorgeous over the last few days (I'm currently typing this at the patio table in 80 degree heat), the number of insects visiting the garden has increased too, especially the butterflies. Here are a few I've managed to photograph, mostly by chasing them around the garden all day like a lunatic!

The Peacock Butterfly.

Orange Tip Butterfly. Look at his head! I swear he turned around to pose for the photo!

And I'm not sure what species this butterfly is, maybe you know? It has light brown, plain wings on the underside, with one little white spot on each.

Common Blue.

And finally, a Large White.