The post yesterday was all about white so today will have a yellow theme. This is a bit random and based only on what caught my eye yesterday when the sun broke through the clouds every now and then. First is deciduous azalea ‘Summer Sunshine’. This is a comparatively new cv. named only 20 or so years ago and notable for being so late to bloom. When I chose my ten azaleas for the garden the aim was that all would be scented and with a wide spread of flowering time and this is one of the latest. It is not as ‘golden’ as the sunshiny name would suggest: the buds are quite red and there is a definite pink tinge to the blooms, but they are showy with crinkled petal edges and they are fragrant and very welcome in the garden.

It was a losing battle tying to keep the hostas from being eaten as soon as they poked their noses up in spring. But hostas vary enormously in when they decide to ‘wake up’. Those that had a ‘lie in’ have been far more successful and this area is making me glad that I have planted lots of hostas. Most of the hostas were lifted and divided this spring (well mid April because of the soggy soil) but these four plants were left undisturbed because they were neither too close nor too sparse and they are doing what hostas are supposed to do. I did not rummage for the labels but the far one is ‘Captain Kirk’, always remembered because – well you know why if you grew up on Star Trek.

By the pond, on heavy (nasty) soil is iris ‘Aicho no Kayagaki’. It was in another part of the garden but was being swamped so it was moved last spring and is doing well. It is a ‘pseudata’ iris, being a hybrid between the native (and invasive in many countries) Iris pseudacorus and the Japanese water iris (Iris ensata). These are relatively recent inventions and have elegant flowers that are much larger than Iris pseudacorus and usually with pretty ‘eye’ patterns. This one (like others in my experience) has yellow foliage as it emerges that turns green and is pretty vigorous. It is also sterile so no invasive tendencies here. The name means ‘bright inspiration’ apparently. There are other, more exciting, hybrids and I will look out for them but I am content, at the moment, with this one that is doing so well. As is so often the case with pond-side plantings, although there is water 30cm away the soil here is actually dry in summer, though, like all the garden, saturated in winter.

Lastly Diervilla ‘Kodiak Orange’. Diervillas are finally starting to attract the attention they deserve after being in the shadow of weigelas for so long, their more showy relatives. The small yellow flowers of diervillas are no match for weigelas (though I believe someone is making hybrids between the two) but they are produced at the tips of the new shoots all summer. They are also very attractive to bees and are becoming popular almost solely because of this. But while gardeners are not very excited by diervilla, landscapers find them useful because they combine ease of growth and attractive foliage and flowers for months. The ‘Kodiak’ series is doing much to make them mainstream and apart from this I now have ‘Kodiak Black’ which is doing well after being planted tree months ago. The contrast of the dark purple leaves and yellow flowers is quite striking.

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