LITTLE ARTY JOURNEYS: Monday morning walk (Coombe Wood)

The gunnera leaves are huge.

The pond was lovely and clear again - beautiful reflections.

Sunlight through ferns.

A few poppies remain - this one lit by the sun.

One of the new trees that the gardener planted a little while ago has produced fluffy, red topped flowers.

Scrambling daisies, soft arching grasses and chunky steps.

Drifts of colour.

Tiny empty grass seed cases (having dropped their seeds) showing up well against a background of soft purples.

Wonderful contrasting shapes - spheres of blue curls and tufty red spikes.

Pink bobbly buds on tree like stems.

A couple of new magnolia buds are opening - second or third flush of flowers!

Golden rain tree still looking splendid.

attracting the bees.

Echinaceas (?)

I used to think I knew what the middle of a flower looked like, but they are all so different and constantly changing. Here yellow tufts are appearing among the red.

I noticed an insect with grey and black vertical stripes. I looked it up when I got home - rather disappointed that it was probably a Sarcophaga carnaria - "flesh fly" (oh what a lovely name!) and is quite common.

A bee burrowing down to find nectar.

The tiny lilac coloured buds are opening to reveal soft yellow middles.

Back past the golden rain tree where one of the cats has settled on the bench beneath it.

White echinaceas (?)

A common greenbottle fly. (I've heard of bluebottle flies but not green bottle flies!) Such a shiny metallic green body. (And accidentally caught an absolutely minute little creature on the white petals.)

Bee

More echinaceas.

And more of the pink buds on tree-like branched stems, standing high above vibrant green leaves.

Tall yellow daisy-like flowers starting to open.

Honesty seeds lit by the sun.

Purple and yellow drifts of flowers.

Colourful orange and yellow flowers with middles in various stages of development, starting as a reddish brown ball with yellow curls opening at the bottom and working their way up to the top.

Some flowers really are very strange.

Palm tree and banana trees.

These little flowers have tiny stamens tipped with lilac anthers.

The Korean pine cones have grown a lot since my last visit - some are 3 inches tall now.

Beautyberry (Callicarpa) flowers all gone, berries forming.

Acer seeds.

Heart shaped leaves darkening.

Seed pods up the tree with huge leaves.

A blanket of hydrangea flowers almost covering all the leaves.

Bee with pollen sac bulging.

This is a season of rapid growth and change - new flowers are bursting open everywhere.

Red bug (might be a red soldier beetle?) straddling two flowers - hanging on tight as a slight breeze swayed the flowers.

Bees on flowers.

Yellow flowers with middles in a variety of stages.

Much taller yellow flowers.

More photos of bees and flower middles etc.

This one has some unruly wayward little petals. Fabulous starry shapes around the edge of the middle.

Huge allium seed head getting swallowed up in surrounding plants as they shoot up.

I felt I had to hurry past the herbaceous borders as a man was trying to do a photo-shoot there. He was getting a lady in a beautiful dress, with a white flower in her hair, to run along the lawn while he took photos of her.

The fallen branch is still under the big beech tree. Through the gap in the hedge I caught a glimpse of the lady being photographed.

When I came round the other end of the lawn she was sitting down with the backdrop of flowers having her photo taken.

Love in a mist seed pod split in half.

The once soft green fronds are now brown and hard.

Tiny white flowers between the shaggy mop like purple flowers.

Fuchsias with frilly skirts.

The first deep purple flower spike from this plant.

Lovely colour mix in the higher flowerbed.

I got a bit carried away with the colours.

On this trip I took 360 photos altogether - it was hard to get it down to this number! (That's why it was a walk on Monday and now it's Wednesday before I got round to posting it.) Almost at the end now.