Buddleia

My garden is currently full of bees and butterflies, the latter especially being attracted by the buddleia.  This tree isn't actually mine - it belongs to the people whose garden backs onto mine and they've let it go a bit wild.  I don't mind at all when it's in flower as it's beautiful, I just don't like it so much when it has stopped flowering and has stopped me getting in my shed!   Geoffrey next door (eighty-four years old with very strict views on tidiness and gardens!) cuts it down as soon as it shows the slightest inclination to sully his very neat plot, and constantly exhorts me to do so too.   I hate cutting anything down before it's even flowered, even if it doesn't actually belong to me.

I live a couple of doors away from the corner of our road, and the road adjoining us is on a slight incline so the gardens get higher and higher, which means, from my sofa, I get to see other people's gardens too and have a snoop!   What is really pleasing is that a number of the gardens in the next road have buddleia trees too and they are all different colours from mine - it's gorgeous!  So from my living room, I can see lilac, bright pink, pale pink and a very dark purple - almost black - buddleia.  No wonder we have so many butterflies around - in fact, Finn was chasing one around my living room earlier on today.

The sad news though is that the flowers on mine/ back garden neighbour's buddleia have died and gone brown now - the above photos were taken a couple of weeks ago - which means only one thing.  Today I'm on lopper patrol and will hopefully be able to access my shed later this afternoon!