It turns out that many of my favourite plants are biennials - there's teasel, great mullein and foxgloves. They are all large plants between 4 feet and 7 feet tall typically, with copious tiny seeds, thick stems and thick leaves.
As predicted the foxgloves in the front have turned our moss garden into a veritable glade of wonder. They are all self seeded from half a dozen plants put in 3 years ago - one of the first purchases from B&Q when we moved in. wild-type pink ones but they didn't seem to do as well.) White is certainly the dominant colour for this year.
By the by in the picture below my wife isn't pixie sized (though she is only 5ft 2) it's just that I shot through the flowers of course.
The photo doesn't really do the garden justice - the greenery gets lost in the background and the white flowers get lost in the white walls of our cottage. Actually it is two cottages made into one - which is a bit greedy of us really but that was how it came. It is particularly greedy as we don't have any kids living with us at the moment (though the Graduate will be here from tomorrow until she gets a real job). To think that this place probably housed maybe a dozen people at one time and now it is just Jiurie most of the time. Makes you think really. Not sure what it makes you think but it does make you think.
Anyhowthe foxgloves have not only soread downwind from the original plants they have managed to spread upwind a little bit too so that they are starting to grow under the trees too.
The flowers themselves are attracting a lot of bees - both honey and bumble - and the flowers are well shaped for the bees to crawl up inside for the nectar while tiny hairs inside the flower scrape at their backs and wings. I only noticed the fine hairs when I took a photo of a wild-type purple flower but unfortunately it doesn't show up too well in the blog photo. Time for a scan maybe (tomorrow). The white flower definitely doesn't show the hairs clearly.
