Ghastly Greenfly

In my garden and the allotment I have planted lots of Sweet Peas which are at their best at the moment.  The ones planted in the ground are doing fine with no problems, but the ones I have grown in a container are covered in greenfly.  Does this mean that the plants are stressed and that has attracted the greenfly - I don't know - but I gave them a good spray with a friendly bug killer this morning in the hope of saving them from devastation.

I grow three varieties of  Sage (Salvia Officinalis) in the garden in my herb beds.  The one pictured above is Tricolour.  This half-hardy cultivar has mild-flavoured green leaves with pink and white margins.  The other decorative Sage is:-

Icterina which is a gold variegated Sage with leaves that are mottled green and gold with a mild flavour.  The third variety that I have is just your basic one, which is used for cooking.

There are several other varieties that I would like to get hold off but I have never seen for sale and they are Pineapple, Red Rooted, Clary, Prostratus and a Purple Sage.  I keep looking in the seed catalogues but they are obviously not as popular as the more common ones that you see.  The funny thing is, that I have had the above varieties for a number of years, even though they are meant to be half-hardy, but they have never flowered.  Not even the common one has flowered, but perhaps it is because I keep them trimmed back so that they don't get too woody.

One of the joys of cycling to my allotment early in the morning is passing by the churchyard in the village.  At this time of year the Lime trees are in flower - the flowers are extremely fragrant and the noise of the bees that are attracted to them  is like a constant hum.  The worlds' most valued honey is made from Lime blossom.  The other name for the Lime tree is Linden or Basswood which refers to the linen-like bass fibres below the bark, once used as cordage (cords or rope, used in rigging of ships).