Until last weeks, the lupins in my garden remained stubbornly unblossomed. Then the sun made a guest appearance in Ireland last week, and they all exploded into columns of colour – about 6 weeks later than normal. Before the flowers appeared, the plants had to survive a massive swarm of bugs – greenfly and assorted aphids began munching their way through the plants. The bugs in the picture above are tough – the ones that survived the several applications of bug spray.