How strange to be saying what a beautiful few days we have been having. Temperatures in the high teens, hardy geraniums still pushing out the odd flower here and there, no sign of frost and mercifully, some dry weather. The garden is moving towards Winter but slowly. The evergreen agapanthus leaves are just turning yellow so it’s time to wrap them in fleece. I have some tulip bulbs to plant and a few weeks back I did manage to plant out some ‘Electric’ red onion sets. The figs are still cropping but the size is diminishing. As the days shorten the garden will settle into its Winter phase. In the meantime, here’s this week’s six.
One
My go to autumn shot is the persimmon tree. Usually laden with fruit at this time of year. But what a strange year it has been, so much sun yet only two fruits. Was it the dry summer, or simply that last year was a bumper crop so this year is the famine year. The parakeets will have to find something else to feed on.
Two
The bergenia thinks it is early spring and is putting out fresh flowers, offering some late nectar for the bees that are still around.
Three
In a more seasonal vein, hesperantha are adding some autumnal colour. These are earmarked for lift and divide session in spring. This is partly to reinvigorate them and also another attempt to control the marauding cinquefoil weed that spreads through this corner.
Four
There’s a useful splash of lime green coming from the euphorbia oblongata, going great guns this year. I’ve talked previously about this being described as a short-lived perennial which continues to defy this description. Long may it continue.
Five
Liriope muscari. It should be a clump of three, but only one survives. It does get overlooked but grows in a shady place so I’m grateful for any display.
Six
Yes, another rose. This is rosa ‘Madame Isaac Péreire’, from the Bourbon rose group. One of my favourites for fragrance.
I need to spend some time in the garden this weekend. The ‘to do’ list includes tidying up soggy agapanthus leaves, there are hellebore leaves to be cut back, some planting out of tulips and yet more picking up glass from the old greenhouse. The site has been cleared now and I am surveying the foundations and wondering if they will do for the new greenhouse. They are, of course, not in brilliant condition. The foundations are not level and there are frost shattered bricks to be cleared out. But maybe a new course will sort things out. Over at Jim’s there is a beautiful rhodochiton plus all the links to other SOS posts for the weekend. Enjoy your gardening weekend!
I garden in London and so get a little complacent about frosts. But this week the lawn has had a light frosting and it was clearly a sign that cold weather gardening had to start. Last year’s fleece was in shredded tatters in the shed and I hate all those white flaky bits. I hot footed it to Homebase and found some delightful green bags of 35gsm fleece with very handy draw string pulls. I usually fleece up the agapanthus armed with a stapler but these jackets were easy to pull over the plants and the fetching shade of green is slightly less obvious than white. Job done.
I was certainly lulled into complacency by the balmy days I experienced in Suffolk last week but the cold evenings are changing the colours of the garden. The persimmon tree is looking beautiful even as the leaves are falling.
The previously sun scorched hydrangeas are also taking on their winter hue.
But elsewhere the summer container plants are still in good health and I will leave them out throughout the winter. In mild years I have been able to carry the geraniums over into the next summer.
The white antirrhinum sowed from seed is still in flower at this end of the garden but elsewhere I have collected seeds from another plant that has done its bit for summer.
I recently planted out some gaura and pennisetums in a west border and alongside them I put in some Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’, which still thinks there’s time to put on a display. Thank you!
Pride before the fall and fall the persimmons did. Two branches came down, both heavily laden with fruit. They broke from the inside so nature has done a good job of opening up the tree.
No sooner had the delphiniums put up their second flush of flower stems than the storm arrived. Of course I hadn’t got round to tying in the tops but the ties at the bottom seem to have helped steady the stems enough to keep them safe.
The stately cosmos that was just opening out its flowers was not so lucky. I had tried to push a cane into the ground but there was no give at all. The plant snapped off at the bottom. All was not lost as I cut back the side stems and brought them inside to fill a vase.
The fruits of the passion flower are ripening and providing a focal point over the top of an arch. These is the more common Passiflora caerulea and although the fruits are edible when very ripe I prefer to leave them be.
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Indeed the doorbell rang a moment ago and although it was not the aforementioned plants I was excited to receive the first of the bulb orders. Excited on two counts: Yes! I had my six for the week (it was touch and go) and I could cross Colchicum speciosum Album off of the wish list. I hope they are going to like the space I have ready for them. Fingers crossed that it is sunny enough.
A persicaria – labelled as ‘pink’ so I can’t add any further information. It goes some way to my getting persicaria into the garden but I am on the hunt for some of the dark red ones. I planted it next to the salvia ‘Blush Pink’ bought earlier in the summer and I hope they will be happy soul mates.
I singularly failed to record the other great gardening activity of the weekend which was the apple picking. It was a smaller crop this year, both in numbers of apples and size. Some were little bigger than a golf ball but as they all go for juicing they were all picked. In about a week I will know how many bottles this year’s harvest produced. The bent double apple tree of a few weeks ago is now nearly horizontal so I took a picture of that!
Every week I think about including this Cleome ‘Senorita Carolina’ in the six but for some reason it stays on the sub’s bench. This week it makes it into the team. I really don’t know why it has taken me so long, it’s been flowering like this all summer. The real colour is slightly less vibrant than captured here. It’s a tender plant so if the winter is anything like last year I shall probably lose it.
Just coming into flower is the Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’. Earlier in the year its poor leaves were scorched by the sun but as the season moves on it’s site is more in the shade where the splash of white shines through.
Given the size of the apples this year I was surprised and impressed by the persimmon fruits. They are much larger than last year and although I am not a great fan of the fruit I do enjoy their orange colour as they ripen in November.
n20gardener 