Lots of new plants and bulbs
Afriend has taken some aerial shots of my garden. They really put into perspective where we sit on the landscape. I’ve found them quite fascinating to look at. Down on the ground, the beach garden, which is low maintenance, has seen me put 25 containerised agaves of varying sizes inside to overwinter them. Several have been repotted and their babies extracted to pot up. I ended up with over 20 new ones! Also in the beach garden, the delicate Tamarix tetrandra has flowered again, its dainty, feathery racemes of pink flowers always amaze me by not being blown away by the strong winds.
I recently acquired some new plants, with one I’d never seen before. Aeonium tabuliforme, has a totally flat appearance and is quite tender, but utterly beautiful. I bought two, which are currently planted up in my front porch. Another is Faucaria tuberculosa, which has the most magnificent yellow flowers at this time of the year. They open around midday and close late afternoon and are extremely eye-catching.
There comes a time when you have to decide when to get on with putting the garden to bed for the winter, but some flowers won’t stop blooming! All the annuals have finished, so all that debris has been taken to the tip as I don’t have space to compost. Many shrubs have been cut back hard, too. I recently received more than 300 complimentary bulbs from a bulb company, so I have to get on and plant them for a wonderful spring display. Last month, I invited all my garden helpers to a tea party. I’d commissioned a local artist to make me 12 hand-coiled ‘Driftwood 2017’ pots, which I gave as gifts to them all for their hard work. The afternoon went down well, as did the tea and cake! ● Read more of Geoff’s garden at www.driftwoodbysea.co.uk.