I picked a small bunch of flowers yesterday as a visiting gift: I always like to arrive with a garden-grown posy, if I can. I love how as the year progresses, the colours in the garden get stronger. Spring flowers are mainly yellow and blue and white; by late summer the strong, zingy and acid colours have taken over.

A little posy from my garden. Click to enlarge.

A small late summer posy. Click to enlarge.

This posy has some bright yellow Inula hookeri flowers; deep pinky purple spikes of our native purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), beloved of bees and butterflies; fennel flowers (Foeniculum vulgare); blue spikes of Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum); Clematis ‘Polish Spirit’ with its wonderful trails of purple flowers; the very last flowers of the vivid orange Crocosmia plants that have self-sown in our garden; and the purple foliage of Euphorbia dulcis ‘Chameleon’.

It was only a small posy, but it was much appreciated and looked very pretty in its vase. So much nicer than shop-bought flowers, I think: it means more, somehow, when you have grown your gift yourself.