Thoroughly {purple} Thursday

I bet the kids can't believe their luck, all this hot weather to kick off the end of term holidays.  Not so for us poor gardeners though, struggling to protect our plants from this mediterranean-like heat.  To cap it all, there's been a good stiff breeze running across the garden for the past couple of days wicking any moisture away from the leaves and encouraging transpiration which means that roots need more water otherwise the plants bolt, set seed and generally just keel over.

My purple globe artichoke flowerhead has fast-forwarded from last weekend's pink scales with yellow fluff centre to burst into a show-stopping thistle-head within the past two days.  I can't get my photos to replicate the purple of the flower fronds, it's almost electric blue in its intensity. I've tried different settings on my camera and a bit of tweaking in photoshop; I even got up earlier* to photograph it in a bluer morning light because yesterday's setting sun threw a warm orange cast over the garden. It made a slight difference but apparently the 'wow' factor can only be viewed in real life. As I grew this from a seed, I'm now wondering if I could fit a few more of these into the garden…. maybe in the Hot Border**, under the 'palm' tree, next to the lavender and perovskia? Hmm, sounds good; I think I might just tootle off and have a little internet search for seeds… :)

*not that early judging by the shadows creeping over the path!
** The Hot Border is a part of the garden that I'll do a post on soon as it's an ongoing renovation.