Swift Half update - 17th July 2011

• After a warm, settled, sultry week - the weekend has produced windy, blustery, squally, cool weather, but the garden has survived!
• Our tallest sunflower now approaches 9 feet and is still trying to fully produce its flower.
• Our sage has been pretty-well uprooted by the hens, but still survives.
• My pulmonaria has started its second growth of the year.
• Our first two water lily flowers have burst out of the pond, with maybe three to come still...
• The moth trap has bagged a lovely magpie moth (very under-rated I think) and a ruby tiger - and plenty of scalloped oaks and buff ermines.
• The honeysuckle and lavender have started to flower again.
• Malu has raided another blackbird's nest in the back garden - giving two three-day old chicks to the hens to eat and ending our blackbird's second try this year.
• Finally  - a first for the garden at Swift Half - I photographed a brown argus butterfly this morning, roosting on a dead chive flower at dawn.