2018 annuals trials 10 weeks on

This has been a hot and challenging summer for many plants and the annuals have suffered a bit from lack of water. However, as you can see, we still have some colour.

I dont know the bee-count results yet but from a purely horticulturla perspective I have some comments:

Cleome - stately, elegent, easy and long-flowering....but no bees at all

Cosmos - beautiful as you would expect but high-maintenance on the dead-heading and stopped flowering if not done. A few bees including leafcutters but not wildly exciting

Calendula - very vibrant for a few weeks with a good variety of bee species but, again, needed dead-heading and stopped flowering when we went on holiday

Cerinthe - flowered really well for about 7 weeks with plenty of bees but then it was over

Clary sage (suspect its miss-named) - the star of the set: still flowering well after 10 weeks and only needed a light pruning of the older stems to keep it looking good. Attacts bees consistently. I will grow this again.