Cake in the Sun

It was a fabulously sunny day on Sunday here in my little corner of Hertfordshire, which made it all the more sad that I had quite a lot of horticulture revision to get done. And not the kind of revision where you can wander around the garden deadheading plants while you try to recall their Latin name and preferred growing conditions. No, it was the kind you can only really do sitting indoors at a laptop, surrounded by books containing details of pathway foundation materials (hoggin and MOT type 1, for the hardcore nerds among you) and biosecurity approaches to the storage of topsoil during garden construction.
So, this meant I couldn't get out to any NGS open gardens in order to mark Chelsea Fringe: The Bloggers' Cut – a virtual gathering brought together over at Veg Plotting. However, I did manage to whiz up a quick cake of my own and enjoy it with a coffee sitting in my own garden. My cake choice was driven by leftovers. A jar of stem ginger really needed finishing off so I found a ginger cake recipe online which I tweaked in order to use the rhubarb cooking juices strained off while making rhubarb fool on Friday. I am nothing if not thrifty when it comes to cooking...It was a lovely cake, though I suspect Mary Berry would pronounce it slightly underbaked. Personally, I consider perfectionism a failing.

So, to share with you a little more than the green shades of the garden predominant in the photo above, here are some gorgeous flowers in full color in my garden this weekend.

A rather vibrant Dahlia 'Bishop of Landaff' that I picked up at Chelsea Flower Show

A Californian Lilac that seems to be invigeling its way into my favour despite me trying to cut it down for 3 years

Self-seeded aquilegias – quite the most welcome flowers in the garden

As above, in hot pink

And possibly the latest late tulip I've ever known