Hosta 'Red October'

I really like this hosta, but it's a demon to photograph because the flower stems are so long, and arch away from the leaf rosette. I'm not all that happy with this shot, but as I had to kneel on the soggy lawn and contort myself like Quasimodo to get it, it shall be blipped and that's an end of the matter.

I'm trialling home-made garlic spray on some of my plants against the legions of slugs and snails that lurk in every shady corner of this garden (I know, I know: if I was a proper gardener I'd go out every night with a torch and a bucket and collect them all, but life is too short and sleep too precious), and I'm cautiously optimistic about it. One of the summerinas keeps being munched, but I'm not seeing anything like the level of damage to the new hostas that I was expecting, so maybe it does actually work. The theory is that garlic is poisonous to gastropods and that's why the smell repels them - though Current Husband (who is hugely amused about this) thinks it's more likely to be some kind of Jungian collective memory of various of their friends and relations being served up in garlic butter.

Good things that happened today: Listers in Evesham removed the stone that's been rattling round inside one of the brakes of my car for a couple of weeks now, and didn't charge me for it; and Crocus delivered the plants I ordered from them last Sunday. Mmmmm....lovely plants....

Bad things that happened today: I couldn't go out and plant anything because it's heaving down again; and I've pulled the handle off the tumble drier door. Just don't know my own strength, that's the problem.