Coombe Wood walk with friends (Thursday)

I arrived a bit early for a pre-walk walk.

Gunnera by the pond. 

Lovely clear water now. 

Abundance in the flower beds.  

Wonderful leaf patterns and colours. 

The silk tree. 

Some of the flowers/seeds are falling off. 

Prairie plants - so much growth and so many bees! 

The flowers that were on the golden rain tree last week have already turned into pods.

Futher around the prairie beds. 

The twining stems of morning glory will hold onto anything!

These alway remind me of little nests. 

This is what they look like when they're open. (I think the insect is so neat.)

I wish I'd noticed the brown spider (bottom right under the plant) while I was there - I would have had a closer look. I only saw it when I was at home and my photos were on the computer.

This looks creamy white from a distance...but looking closer there's pink and yellow.

Clematis and hops. 

Grapes frowing over the Welcome to Coombe Wood noticeboard.

I headed towards the entrance to meet my friends and had a closer look at the flower beds near the entrance.

I met my friends and we headed off for our walk. Past the silk tree....

...noticing different things as we walked and chatted together.

Interesting insect. It looked like a dark bee from a distance - but was flat and not fluffy and only had two stripes. It also has a faint pattern on its wings. 

Water drops on sedum. 

Echinacea (cone flower) 

Poppy peeping through other plants. 

Rich colour mixtures 

Tiny flowers on the big shrub under the banana trees. 

Korean pine cone. 

Callicarpa berries forming. 

There are still some flowers but I have missed most of them! I'm sure I looked last week but there weren't any yet. That was quick!

Candyfloss tree changing colour. 

Tiny flowers - lightly scented. 

Hydrangea

Spindleberries - beginning to change colour. 

A few cornus flower/berries have turned red - most are still green.

Heading along the grass between the herbaceous borders. Swaying purple flowers - moving a bit too much in the breeze for decent photos.

Sunflowers

New leaves much lighter than the older ones - and a lovely veined pattern

Red sunflowers.

 Little green spider

Fluffy cosmos leaves - more flowers to come.

We had a lovely lunch in the Coach House cafe. It was really good to chat and catch up....and so nice to have enjoyed a photographic walk with friends who also enjoy photography. (A lot of photos were taken!) 

The view in the mirror in the cafe courtyard where we sat for lunch (in spite of wasps!)

Thank you very much for joining me.