By the tap

Lilium 'Red Velvet': in the old bath planter by the door, twice as tall this year as last and quite magnificent.

While filing up the watering cans earlier this evening I thought 'I need a picture of those lilies,' so scuttled inside for the camera. Filling two cans takes a surprising length of time, so I photographed a few other things in the vicinity, and again at the next filling, all within a short distance of the tap. Here are a few of them.

Unfurling frond of Polypodium cambricum Cambricum Group. This is one of the latest plants to produce new growth in the year, but the beautiful fronds remain green throughout the winter.

 

Larix kaempferi 'Wolterdingen' - a dwarf larch, acquired in Prague some years ago, and now mounding up into an almost velvety heap of silvered soft-green foliage. It turns yellow in autumn.



A white Gentiana septemfida. This is in a pot bought from the greengrocer in Cirencester a few days ago, consisting of at least six different seedlings ranging from blue to white through bicolor. I'll separate them and pot them separately later in the year.

A hybrid between Digitalis (Isoplexis) canariensis and a purple foxglove, raised by Maarten van der Sar at Sahin in Holland. Esentially a shrubby foxglove, it produces a succession of flowering stems through the summer.