Seeing Red ....

.... with a bit of orange thrown in.

Starting the day


Whilst planting some Ice Cream Tulip bulbs
a 7 spot ladybird


In the garden

Chinese Lantern plant


Weeping Cotoneaster


Out and about

Berberis


Acer


Sweet William


Remembrance


Objects


To end the day

Lanterns in the Making

A close look at my Chinese Lantern plants.
I expect to see some bright orange lantern seed cases later in the year:

Bottle Brush

Bottlebrush plant anyway. Callistemon Citrinus. I used to a have a Callistemon growing in the conservatory many years ago. Even though the conservatory was heated in those days it died off one hard winter. There used to be a garden centre not far away which had one of these in a greenhouse. It had been growing for years and the display of bright red bottle brush shaped flowers put on a magnificent show every year. The version I have just planted in the front garden is rated at H3 which should be safe down to -5C:

 

For those who haven't seen a Callistemon:
You can see what the flowers look like here on the RHS site.

The two pots of Chinese Lantern plants are coming on well:

 



It's nice to have some more unusual flowering plants and am really looking forward to the results.