A ray of sunshine

A large seedling has sprung up underneath the birds' fatball container.  Initially I didn't pay it much attention (it's a weedy spot, and another weed in there wasn't going to make much difference); there is a sweet rocket plant nearby, and I took it to be just another seedling from that, as the leaves are similar.  The other day it occurred to me that sweet rocket leaves are mostly in a basal rosette, whereas on the seedling they are up the stem; and a closer look showed that at the top of that stem is a single, fat flower bud.  It's a sunflower, and a better sunflower than any that I've ever grown deliberately, despite being in a rather shady spot.  It must be the offspring of a seed that had dropped out of a fatball and wasn't picked up by the birds - remiss of them, as sunflower seeds are usually their favourite! 

An unexpected sunflower

It will be a few days yet before the sunflower flowers, but in the meantime a ray of sunshine is coming from one of the gazanias that I grew from seed; only one of these has flowered so far, but it's a bright, sunny yellow, providing a cheery note when the blooms open.

A sunny gazania

I've been bringing some cheer indoors with a vaseful of 'Bishop's Children' dahlias, whose bright and slightly clashing tones and open faces have been providing smiling colour outside and in.  Being single flowers they're attractive to bees, and when I picked this bunch I had to encourage a couple of honeybees to go elsewhere before I could take them inside for arranging.

Dahlia 'Bishop's Children'

In fact I'm becoming more and more fond of the Children; they're making a better display than any of my other dahlias (except perhaps 'Cafe au Lait', whose flowers are so large that they always make a statement).  It may just be that they were planted out earlier than the rest; we'll see how the others do in a couple of weeks!

As far as the real rays of sunshine are concerned, we've had a few more in the last week or so, and the forecast for the next couple of days is for warm and sunny weather.  After that, they say that the tail-end of the Atlantic hurricanes might start kicking in, and that might be the end of the summer weather ....