Plant of the week - Oenothera (Evening Primrose)

There's still a lot going on in my garden at the end of September, but my choice for this week took me by surprise. The evening primrose has had a second wind and exploded in a flurry of large yellow flowers - it had already flowered in late summer, producing blooms at a fairly modest rate, but it looks like this is it's 'swan song'.

Evening Primrose - Oenethera

What's also unusual is that its flowers are open during the day, rather than opening during the late evening as it did during the summer (hence it's name). This means it's being visited by bees rather than moths as you can see on the right hand side of the shot above. It feels like this one was desperate to stock up for the winter months - visiting every flower several times to make sure none were overlooked.

It was hanging around long enough for me to capture some great shots of it, body and legs dripping in pollen, gorging itself inside one of the flowers.

Evening primrose & Buff-tailed bumblebee (queen)

Evening primrose & Buff-tailed bumblebee (queen)

I pinched some seeds that were growing wild by the road at the end of the street. That was last year, and I already have mature plants. I suspect these will be self-seeding and start to pop up everywhere but I really don't mind!