Is It Summer Now, Or...?

While I continue to get absolutely no knitting done (but the writing hasn't faltered yet, so I think that's a plus) I have still made some time for the garden. So far we've had the most dismal spring I can remember, and this week - the last fortnight before summer - we have finally had some heat. The last three days were hot! It's been having quite an effect.

The colour of this bloom is genuinely fluorescent.

The artichoke is finally, finally beginning to open and it looks stunning. The colour - especially while everything around it is mostly green - is ridiculously vibrant. The bulbs on the second plant, the one that tipped over in the last storm, are also slowly starting to open out, though I donated some of the younger heads to my coworkers.

The gaura I bought last year has finally flowered - I think the pot and its location meant that the plant was drying out a lot more than I'd realised - as has the lemon tree, sweet peas, strawberries, lambs' ear, roses (I'm drowning in roses) and a little volunteer pansy that popped up in the strawberry bed. Everything is beautiful, everything is covered in bees and hoverflies, and almost everything is flourishing.

This little beauty stole my heart (I have no idea where it came from, though!)

Almost everything? Yes. I got a little ahead of myself and visited the nursery for my summer plants without actually considering the weather forecast or when I would have a chance to plant them out. The two days they lived here in their pots I kept them shaded and watered, but this evening when I got home from work in that goldilocks zone of "not boiling hot" and "still light enough to work" I found something terribly sad: they're looking a little droopy.

Please feel better soon, chilli!

After some careful handling and deep watering they are all in place, as I have no idea when my next chance would have been, but I'm mildly concerned that some of them might not pull through. In particular my half dozen little chilli plants look especially wilted, as does the heirloom cherry tomato. The larger tomato (which promises weird little fig-shaped fruits) and watermelon looked only mildly bothered, though, and the basil and habanero seemed entirely unconcerned.

Should the mulch be left there? I have no idea. I have literally no idea what I'm doing.