Monday, October 17, 2011

October flowers

Well I seem to be late for everything this month. And so it is with the unmissable Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, which for some time now I have been using as a way of stepping back and looking, properly at the garden and where it is in the year (instead of just seeing the usual tick-list of jobs that became urgent last week).

I blame a certain lethargy brought on by the impending frosts. And the recent demise of Slide.com, which was my way of indulging in loads of photos without the guilt of having to inflict them on anyone unless they wanted to sit through them all.

So I'm afraid this month you'll have to look at all my photos, one by one: either that, or log off right now and go do something more improving instead.

Since it's undeniably autumn now - the swishing sound as I walk becoming less and less easy to ignore, or indeed wilfully deny - I'll start not with flowers but with berries, filling my garden gradually from the yellow buttons of Sorbus 'Joseph Rock' to hips and cotoneaster berries and the little jewel-like Tomato 'Hundreds and Thousands' tumbling over the tubs on my patio.





I'm not too keen on the cotoneaster, as it self-seeds everywhere, but at this time of year you can't help but like it.

There are always lots of wildlings in my garden - and several are having a second flush at the moment.



Some aren't strictly wildings but sort of naturalised garden plants: the Anemone x japonica 'Honorine Jobert' is going mad in the front garden and will have to be sorted out at some point. Not now though.

The hardy fuchsia is another one in its prime right now: hard to think I'm going to have to get rid of it this year (too big, too old, too shady).

In fact the fuchsias generally are looking pretty good right now.



Also in this part of the garden are - or rather were - the scented-leaf pelargoniums; though I spent part of today digging them up and tucking them away in the greenhouse ahead of the Big Freeze.

It's been a good year for the annuals: and a good thing too, as I'm still in my first season so stuck to seed-raised flowers to see me through while I waited to see what came up in my new garden.





The cosmos in particular have been fabulous: flowering madly since about the end of June and still going strong.



But there have been two annual stars which have really stolen the show. The first is my bronze fennel: a lovely foil for other plants while they have their summer spell in the spotlight, but now a fireworks display of golden yellow.

And equally tall and airy, the Nicotiana mutabilis are dancing through the border on their wiry stems of pink and white, charming, dainty and adorable.

So adorable have they been, in fact, that I'm going to follow some advice Chris Ireland-Jones gave me on my recent visit to Avon Bulbs and try to overwinter them in the greenhouse. He says if you can cut them back hard, pot them up and bring them in, they have a head start on the season next year. Twice this display will be quite, quite ravishing. Can't wait.

4 comments:

LittleGreenFingers said...

Love my bronze fennel too, although I have to say they do have the ability to take over and seed like crazy, and the roots are so deep they are quite difficult to eradicate (or maybe I'm just a bit half-hearted about the task).

scottweberpdx said...

Lovely post...I love that Cosmos with the picotee edge!

The Constant Gardener said...

LGF - that's a problem I don't mind having :D I too may end up being less than diligent re removing the extras...

and thanks Scott - it's Cosmos 'Sweet Sixteen'. Wasn't sure about it at the beginning of the year but now it's mixing in with the rest of the border beautifully.

hillwards said...

Lots of lovely colours; I like the pale pink geranium, and that's a fine Anemone - I'm looking forward to ours settling in and putting on a display next year. Your fuchsias look great too.
Sara

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