November flowers

 It's NO-vember - damp, grey and dark by 4 o'clock -

but there are still some flowers out there bringing a bit of colour to the scene.

Fuschias still glorious in there pots outside the conservatory.
They'll need to come indoors when it gets frosty.

Don't know the name for these. Their colourful flower spikes bloom from mid-summer onwards through the autumn.

A hellebore! They normally start to flower in january or February. Crazy seasons!

Cyclamens and sedum still flowering, though not covered in bees as they were in October.

Garden Gallery

Very warm, proper summer but with occasional downpours - June was a great month for the garden. See this collage of shots around the garden, mostly in the vegetable area with brilliant, self-sown poppies sneaking in.The Desiree( large reds) potatoes had masses of pretty mauve flowers. Now in July they've turned into tiny fruits. I've started lifting them and they are looking pretty good so far.

The Sante (white) potatoes are much better than last year, when they mostly drowned, but some have been chewed by slugs so I'm going to lift them as fast as I can and store the best ones in cardboard boxes in the garage to use over the winter. I've also tipped out one of the big pots with potatoes (pots pots?) and they are fine. No slugs or worms and I'm wondering if it's a better method than planting in the ground, but probably harder work filling the pots and then keeping them watered. At least the garden-grown potatoes can send roots down if there's a dry spell.

In the pink

This week we had the hottest September days for 100 years but this morning was misty and cold. The leaves and flowers were bejewelled with dew-drops and the spiders webs bright with fine mist. It felt very Autumnal.

But there's a way to go yet with the Summer. Garden flowers are having a final fiesta before the dark days come along and the trees take the glory with their reds and golds.

I went walk-about with the camera and found the garden was painted pink!

Bright pink roses - irridescent

Tiny cyclamen under the mallus tree

Pinky-red hydrangeas having a final fling

Pink Japanese anenomes are everywhere. They seed prolifically but cheer up the garden
after the sumer bedding has mostly gone over.

These pink roses have been flowering all summer and still have plenty of buds.

Pink sedum is a late-summer feast for the bees and other insects.

Flowers and the rain

Serious rain and flooding all this week. It's just beginning to clear up now on Saturday afternoon. The garden is looking a very bedraggled with the heavy rain pulling down tall plants and flowers like poppies and roses.

To cheer us up here's a few photos of flowers taken earlier in the month in the sunshine!

Aquilegias

Giant Allium with rain-drops

Orange poppies

Pink rose on the A-frame

Leaves & Ixias

The leaves are hanging on  and coming down slowly and persistently. Here's a photo of the leaves on the grass on Saturday morning. We spent most of the day sweeping, hoovering and collecting via the lawn mower and filling two black compost "Daleks" with damp leaves which in a year or so will be lovely leaf mould.

Fallen leaves - mostly cherry, silver birch and maple and some from the big ash in the field.

The days have been a bit grey with thick fog in the morning and evening. But there are some bright spots. These lovely Ixias make a colourful show.  In the photo, the centre of the Ixia flower glows - it's not like that in real life - just picked up by the camera. Presumably this glow attracts bees and insects to pollinate. We have some lovely red tulips that keep the same glow for the bees and the camera. Ixias grow from small bulbs and they spread easily However, last year I saved the seeds from some of the Ixia flowers and they have germinated nicely. Hopefully some will be big enough to plant out to brighten up another spot in the garden next year.

Beautiful Ixias (Kaffir lilies?) brighten up the grey autumn.

The centre of the Ixia flower glows - shows up in a photo .

These tulips show their glow on camera - like the Ixias.