Cosmos has been the star
Tony McCabe
A small garden in Merseyside that is packed with a variety of different features.
The first real storm of autumn brought strong winds and heavy rain as well as a scurry of activity to move more tender plants into the greenhouse for protection. Summer bedding plants were still looking fine but a two-week holiday in October made the decision for me, so out they came to be replaced with seed-raised wallflowers.
In our garden the ‘plant of summer’ award must go to seed-greenhouse.
raised cosmos; every variety has produced a continual display of flowers borne on sturdy stems. A fantastic reward for just a little deadheading. Sometimes it was difficult to see the flowers as bees and hoverflies enjoyed them, too. The bee (and wasp) magnet plant now is the mature ivy at the bottom of the garden in full flower. A little sunshine and out comes the bee choir! One plant that definitely won’t win any awards is pond weed. I neglected my ‘fishing out’ duties for a few days and it’s now taken over!
I always like to see a little quirkiness in the garden, so it was great to see a couple of flowers on the evergreen azalea. Nice to know it’s not just me that doesn’t know what day it is! On the edible side of things, the family apple tree has now finished its crop of ‘Discovery’ but ‘James Grieve’ (and the other one whose name escapes me) are looking good but on the small side. The ‘Joan J’ raspberries have begun ripening, too.
In the greenhouse, the tomatoes are still ripening fruit, but as daylight wanes we’ll have to decide on what we do with the green ones. Most likely ripen indoors to keep us going until Christmas (sorry for the ‘C’ word!). A container of salad leaves and slightly sorry-looking basil plants keep summer lingering on.