You will have to excuse me (though indeed you may be very relieved): this piece is much more pictures than words. Visiting the Botanic Garden in bright sunshine but very high wind, I was struck especially by the pink flowers (not that the blues, purples, reds, yellows, oranges and greens weren’t equally exciting, and of course it’s debatable in this context what is pink, what is purple and what is red): there was something in the quality of the light which made the pinks really glow.

They glow rather less in my photos, alas: I’m sure my camera-phone would work very well if it wasn’t me operating it … I also took some shots of grasses in the monocots bed,

and in the meadow where the poppies are fading and the cornflowers taking over.

The most sensational colour, however, was from a scarlet Crocosmia (or should we be calling them Montbretias?) – completely electrifying against the dark greens of the perennial beds, but quite beyond my (lack of) skill to capture. Go and see for yourselves!

I have named where I can, but some plants were flourishing so exuberantly that I couldn’t find the labels, and one doesn’t want to be spotted apparently crawling under the specimens…

A solitary pink poppy near the Hills Road gate.

Amaryllis near the glass-houses.

Antirrhinums on the Bee Walk.

Three types of geranium …

Clary sage

Berkheya purpurea

Cotinus, the smoke bush

Centranthus ruber (valerian)

Cosmos

Echinacea

Dierama (angels’ fishing rods)

Lychnis coronaria

Penstemons

Pelargoniums in the dry garden

A single pink in the limestone garden

Mallow

Sambucus ebulus (with bee)

Silene gallica

I don’t know!

Yucca

And some roses (with the little black bugs which seem to love them)

Rosa gallica

Caroline