These continue to do very well. It’s quite hard to determine peak flower time, but it must be close. Each flower of the pink one hardly smells at all, but there are so many of them there is definitly a hint of something slightly sweet and toffeeish in the air. Marshmallow?

The white one at the back had originally found its way almost to the eaves, but the top wire broke in the high winds. It’s now been replaced with something thicker.

Both plants will need to be cut back, probably with shears, or the hedge trimmer, when they’ve finished flowering.

White mophead in F4:

Remove all dead flowers and dead stems. Remove congested stems. Cut back from path and door a bit.

Bluebird in F4:

Cut back to required outline. Tidy up.

Reddish in B2:

Cut back, but not too much so fence remains hidden.

I’ve just cut back the lavender near the garage. The flower heads were almost all dead, and there were very few bees visiting. Each of the several hundred stems was cut just above new growth with scissors. Several blisters, but worth it.

The cardoon in the pot was moved from B1 on 19 March 19. It did well at the front, but was nothing like as big as the ones at the back. I cut it back about six weeks ago, and it is sprouting attractive new foliage.

The leaves of the much bigger cardoons in the beds were very dead and scruffy. I was going to cut the plants down completely, but the stems are woody and strong, and the seed heads are quite attractive, so I’ll see how they do over the next few months.

Both clumps of ox eye daisies have now finished flowering. The frilly ones had been allowed to flow (nicely) and the common ones had stayed proped up well behind their steel support. The common ones had swamped the monkshood, which will, hopefully, recover.

I cut back all the tall non-flowering stems as low as I could. The photo was taken afterwards.

Four of the six woody stems were blown down in recent high winds, and broke off at the base. The photo shows the remaining two after propping up. I was going to do something about this plant anyway, as it had got very large.

This continues to be extremely vigorous on the N fence at the back. I have to give it quite a severe trim 2 or 3 times a year. In spite of this, it has flowered better this year than previously. There remain two mysteries: What sort of growth does it flower on? This year’s? Last year’s? I still can’t work it out. The second problem is how do you tell which way a shoot is growing when all you can see is the middle of a stem and it must be cut out? This applies to the clematis montana as well, but not to the rose, thankfully.

The foxgloves have all finished flowering, so I’ve cut them back and kept the seed stems in a box. I’ll transfer the seeds to a paper bag in due course. I probably won’t need them as there are plenty of seedlings all over the garden.

These were root-pruned this spring. They look pretty healthy, although there’s no sign of any flowers. Eaten leaves are normal. The leaves on the old stems have not grown very symmetrically, and some hackery may be necessary next spring. See Root pruning

The old stems of both these both died and they shot up new ones. I quite like the columnar form on the left. I might cut back the one on the right to make it more bushy.

For some reason this was the only one of last autumns root cuttings to survive, but it looks quite healthy.