Seems like this is the year of purple.
Sitting on the patio last night, I noticed some flowers at the back of the garden. Uh! I didn’t remember planting any flowers there. Unless it was a spring bulb, late.
Upon investigation, however, I realised it wasn’t a spring anything. It was the hosta I bought a year gone June.
Yes, hostas do flower. So now I see what all the fuss was about!
Now, to be fair, I know next to nothing about ornamentals – in case you hadn’t already realised. When I bought the plant there were no flowers. And none appeared last summer. So, no wonder I had been a bit puzzled.
Anyway, just to add to the ecstasy, I took it into my head to see how the mini purple runner beans were doing. I say ‘mini’ as the last time I looked there were a few tiny pods and I assumed that with the rain they might have come on a bit.
Well, they had. But what I had not noticed before was that at the bottom of one or two of the plants was something altogether more pleasing.
Purple runner beans – now in the pot for tea.
Growing out of chaos 
One thing I can say for almost clear certainty…
you ain’t got no slugs or snails!!
Or none that can get at that hosta…
the worlds best slugfood are hostas!!
Purple runners… what’s the name of the plant?
Not Bulgarian Purple perchance?
The beans are trionfo violetto. The company (Franchi Sementi) is Italian, so the beans might have another name in English but none is given on the packet.
Anyway, I find that crushed egg shells keep the slugs and snails off the hosta. True, this year the molluscs have been in short supply (they seem happy to climb the Wendy house) but I had the same luck last year with the hosta, so methinks the egg shells really are a deterrent.