…The azaleas are going off. 1915 – JCW Maddeni x cinnabarinum is the best rhodo . Ponticums at their best. Azaleas going back. Lilac Madame Lemoine goes back. Species villosa…

…top of the plant which I think would have been out earlier if the drought had not held the plant back. Again, unusual to find a lilac flowering so nicely…

…other is pre 1996.The first may well be Callicarpa dichotoma which has a compact habit as here and deep lilac pink flowers when they open. Bean seems to agree but…

…a useful record. Magnoliastore Coates Darkest Purple x Betty Jessel First Love cylindrica Hohman J.C. Williams x Apollo John Bond Katja Landner Lilac Chalice virginiana Ludoviciana Melon Sky Peter Dummer…

…but an interesting colour. A very variable species. Rhododendron (Azalea) calendulaceum ‘Sandling orange-red form’ The Paulownia tomentosa ‘Lilacina’ clump above the greenhouse lived only about 30 years. Exponential growth, a…

…Trifolium arvense. Trifolium arvense Trifolium arvense Common birds-foot-trefoil, Lotus corniculatus. Lotus corniculatus Lotus corniculatus Meadow crane’s-bill, Geranium pratense. Geranium pratense A dead black rabbit hanging in a lilac tree. dead…

…plant. Syringa pinnatifolia Berberis valdiviana looking superb beside the lilac. Berberis valdiviana Berberis valdiviana Scilla peruviana are the only things left in my very first garden as a child aged…

…are not pink. Robinia hispida var kelseyi has lilac-pink flowers so that seems the best bet as far as I know. Robinia hispida var kelseyi Robinia hispida var kelseyi Deutzia…

…yellow, red) are about their best, good too in the Drive. Madame Lemoine lilac good for a week, all but the Waterer rhodo’s are over now. Loder’s White good yet….

…but I have been corrected by Clare on this! Yellow poppies Syringa ‘Katherine Havemeyer’ is purple in bud, opening purple-lavender and then fading (as here) to pale lilac-pink. A double…