Flowers keep colour coming
We’re well into autumn weather now, with gusty winds, heavy showers and occasional sunny spells. The dahlias provided colourful flowers for a long time. I didn’t lift the tubers until the foliage was frosted and, as I live near the sea, this turned out be late into November. A few clumps of nerines have been in full flower until recently. They seem to be very resistant to strong winds and heavy rain. Late asters also provided a colour change with dark blue flowers. Autumn crocuses appeared here and there with their delicate blue flowers and orange stigmas. I must have discarded some small corms in the compost heap and they’ve eventually been spread about the garden and grown to flowering-size corms.
Cyclamen hederifolium has finished flowering now, with
C. coum coming into leaf, which should be in flower by late December or early January. Thinking ahead to late spring next year, I’ve been planting tulip bulbs. These are the ones I saved from those that flowered in pots this year. I kept the foliage growing after flowering and gave them a couple of waterings with tomato fertiliser to give the bulbs a chance to grow. The larger bulbs were replanted in pots and the smaller ones in the garden border.
My ornamental cabbage was shredded by cabbage white caterpillars but has now recovered, while parsley and spring onions are still growing, as are germinating seedlings of winter lettuce, violas and perennial poppies.
I’ll take cuttings of my red gooseberry plant and blackcurrant bushes. These will be placed in deep pots using a free-draining compost and left outside for winter. They should start to grow next spring and will be potted on singly next autumn. My Christmas cacti are kept ticking over with the occasional watering during the summer. Despite a total lack of TLC, I noticed one of them is covered in flower buds. I won’t move it until the buds are about to open as these plants can abort their flower buds if moved to a different location.
I got a surprise about a week ago when I called on a neighbour. I was invited to see his greenhouse where he told me that this year his grape (‘Black Hamburg’) was carrying the best crop ever. The vine was laden with large bunches of ripe grapes. He was also growing a fig in the greenhouse and this was laden with ripening fruit. No doubt the mild spring this year gave these fruits a flying start as they’re not always so successful this far north!