wendyswonderlandgarden

Contrary to popular belief in my house I do actually like roses. When mum was younger she wanted a house with a rose garden and when they moved here over 40 years ago there were approx 100 roses in the garden. We probably only have about 5 of those left, many were old and past it and therefore dug out. When I started planning how to plant up a new garden bed I decided I wanted to plant a couple of roses I it, there hasn’t been any before so I should be OK. You have to be careful planting roses in the same spot as a previous one as it could get diseased.

Anyway I bought one after the Tatton Park flower show and also got a catalogue for other roses at this specialist garden centre. I went through it with my marker pen selecting any that were any shade of  pink, red or white, that stated a good fragrance and disease resistant. This week, probably a bit late in the season we returned to the garden centre to look and smell the ones I had selected and purchase 2. In hind sight it’s best not to wait until the end of the season for this as many didn’t have any flowers left. However, I selected  two, one called ‘Cranford’ which is pink with a lovely fragrance but sadly no flowers left. This was planted this morning and one called ‘hot chocolate’, with orangey red flowers and amazing fragrance not of chocolate I have to add! This is the first picture.

Here are some pictures of roses still in flower in October in my garden

The picture above is nostalgia the rose I bought after tatton park flower show   

Incidentally with all the strange weather we’ve had lately one of my poppies has got confused and there is a new bud on it, be interesting to see if it flowers. I’ve never seen this happen before. 

This is one of the busiest seasons in my garden with lots of perennials to cut down and tidy up.

There is still quite a bit flowering including a couple of dahlias which are really a bit late but ‘better late than never’ as the saying goes.

Some pictures to finish

This first one is actually where my gardening began. At primary school (just a few years ago) we had to make a mini garden in a box for a competition I think. Anyway, I didn’t win but a patch that had been dug out of the ground and previously used for vegetables was given to me. We’ve tried lots of different things in thee with varying degrees of success but the heather and a few others have been there most of that time 

Next is a lovely pale peach hollyhock from the original Wonderland garden now rehomed  as the garden was built over  

A scabious grown from seed earlier this summer 

  
A lovely white Japanese anemone also originally from the Wonderland garden  

Lastly a lovely small hydrangea 

Last week we went to Harrogate for a couple of days to visit the RHS garden there, Harlow Carr which I had been wanting to do for some time.

It was lovely, they are celebrating Alice in Wonderland at the moment with themed gardens and childrens play areas. For me the best parts were the long borders, they were so full and brightly coloured and the plants that I like so much, the wild flower meadows full of poppies and cornflowers and also the scented garden.

Its worth a visit if you are in the area ever.

I will leave you with some of my many pictures:

A few more pictures from my garden 

Red annual poppies grown from seed

  
Echinacea pow wow wild berry planted this morning 

My lovely friend down south has   requested some close up pictures of my flowers so here we are.

The first is my gorgeous new rose ‘Nostalgia’

  
The next one is the cornflower with some delphiniums in the background  

 
Finally for now the agrostemma grown from seed. They are gorgeous white flowers and I will definitely grow them again
  

Once again I start my blog with an apology that I haven’t written for a while but I’ve been unwell and spending limited time in the garden.

Anyway, I’ve been harvesting tomatoes, raspberries and cherries this week. The cherries have been hard to get as I put netting on the tree to protect them from the birds. This worked but I have to get the cherries off the tree through the netting!

The foxgloves have almost finished and I have chopped down and composted them. My agrostemma are flowering with lovely white flowers and  the cornflowers are doing well too. Both grown from seed by myself earlier in the year.

To finish some pictures of my garden taken today.

Sorry it has taken so long to post this second and final set of Madeira pictures from my holiday in March. I’ve had some issues in getting them from my phone to the computer but here they are. The garden ones are mostly the presidential gardens in the new town of Funchal and a few of the boardings at the front where they are still working to prevent future flooding.

I love this season the most, when every tine you look at the garden there is something new to see. My tulips are lovely, the bluebells are flowering, my hellebores mostly still flowering although 1 has been eaten, my dahlias in the greenhouse are shooting, the day lilies coming up from their winter sleep and one of my favourite flowers the poppy has big buds ready to flower. I also have a garden full of blue, pink and white forget-me-not. The cherry tree has been covered with netting to protect it from the birds, they ate all the fruit last year. The tomato plants potted on and awaiting their final larger pots. If I was a poet I could continue this on, but I’m not!

My seeds are having varying degrees of success and some packets due to be binned! I have sowen 30 scabious and 4 have come up, I don’t think this is a good return! On the positive side, 13/15 cornflower are outgrowing their small pots and doing really well. 

Pictures for today: