One of my 'inherited' rose bushes has flowered, and it's been a lovely surprise - it's an almost flourescent shade of orange! When I moved here it was stuck in a fairly small pot which was buried in the remnants of a border in the front garden. I took the pot out, rescued the rose bush, and let it recover in a bigger pot for a couple of months, where it grew about 2ft of healthy new growth. A few weeks ago I put it back out into the freshly dug front border and it has rewarded me with 2 of the beautifully coloured blooms. On top of this, my treasured black elder (bought in memory of a pet cat) is in flower in the middle of the front lawn and stands out really well.

My back border has sprung into life, with my sweet peas doing very well up against the willow trellis, my poppies filling out and my as yet unidentified plants adding some unusual foliage colour to the whole thing! On a sour note my sunflowers have been attacked by slugs and I've lost 4 of the plants altogether.

Added a sensible tip to my mental gardening notebook the other day - I was worrying that something was wrong with my Hebe 'Heartbreaker' because the red tips were disappearing...then I finaly read the info on the label and apparently the redness is mostly a winter change, wth cream edged green leaves during summer. That will teach me to read the labels in future!

Happy gardening all!