Colour keeps on coming
A Surrey garden that uses every inch of space for colour and interest all year round.
Preparations are starting for the winter clear up but there’s still colour in the garden. Begonias looks beautiful; one has the most amazing peach and white flowers and I’m planning to try them next year with variegated green and white geraniums and light blue trailing lobelia.
Dahlias, cleomes and solanum ‘Album’ continue to flower, as
does pink and white hibiscus. The flowers on the hedychium are really exotic and I always look forward to seeing them!
I’ve been taking cuttings but just a tray of each variety. I’ll be cutting back geraniums in the wall baskets and potting up marguerites and plectranthus; they’ll be put on the greenhouse bench and covered with fleece to keep them cosy as I won’t be having the heater going for the whole winter. It’s been a good year for vegetables, apart from the mangetout, which got attacked by mildew. We’ve had plenty of courgettes, beans, carrots and beetroot and greenhouse crops have also been good. I thought there weren’t many ‘Green Envy’ tomatoes until I found out Barry has been snacking on them while working in the garden!
I’ve bought some lovely mixed miniature daffodil bulbs and a collection of tulip bulbs, and pansy and primrose plugs have been potted up to grow on until planted out in pots. As we’re changing the front garden we won’t fill the borders and will just have pots and baskets.
We’re not looking forward to building work which is due to start on the house adjoining ours. A planned extension will be on the boundary line and I’m worried about some of the plants growing in the border here, which includes a 35-yearold Chimonanthus praecox and a small tree. A surveyor will be visiting to have a look at this.