I’ve never been to a light trail before as I don’t like the cold and can’t really walk slowly, stand around for long periods due to my health, however, I decided I wanted to go to one this year to get me in the Christmas spirit as I’ve been a bit bah humbug. It was especially cold and we’ve had early snow which just made it more magical. So here are my pictures.
This poinsettia has been very much neglected as I’m not very good with houseplants and yet here it is with the desired red leaves at the correct time of year. This somewhat amuses me as the gardeners would say I need to put it in a darkened place, refuse it water and eventually it’ll produce the red leaves and yet having done none of this (it sits on the windowsill all year) round it’s happily performed for me.
It’s late November, we’ve had thanksgiving and are heading towards Christmas quickly, how prepared are you. It seems a strange time in the garden, I still have summer flowering plants with flowers some for a second time – a Fuschia, hydrangea and Hesperantha (I think it’s changed name again but I can’t keep up).
We haven’t had any frost yet here so my dahlias are still in pots outside. This is the latest by far that they’ve been outside, usually mid October they go to their winter home – the greenhouse and I’m thinking I might put them in anyway. The fact it’s not been so cold is great for the rising heating bills as it means we haven’t really needed it much as yet but it worries me for the garden as we need the proper seasons in order for plants to grow properly. So while I have some summer plants still in flower I also have the hellebores showing their buds and they are about 2 or 3 months early!
We tend to grow our Acers in pots as we can give them the soil they like (ericaceous) and also a sheltered position more easily. They are looking so good at the moment apart from a little wind damage.
I feel like it’s been a long dry and rather hot summer. If anyone says to me ‘we haven’t had a summer this year’ expect me to be cross. I struggle a lot with the hot weather (huge migraine trigger for me) and the constant watering of the garden has definitely been hurting my shoulders and the pain goes straight to my head! I live in the north of England where everyone thinks it rains non-stop, well this year it’s hardly rained all summer! Despite this I feel like the garden has mostly faired pretty well. I’ve done a lot of watering, I know people say you don’t need to water so much but I don’t work hard all year on a garden to let it die because I can’t be bothered!
So the roses have done well and I’ve had just one new one this year called Queen Bee (picture below) although if I see a Queen Elizabeth one I’ll be very tempted to buy one.
I’ve sown some plants from seeds that I’ve never tried before and some I do each year. The cosmos didn’t even germinate, the zinnia did but they were tiny plants and didn’t flower for long. My Ammi, sweetpeas, honeywort (cerinthe), verbena bonariensis (or as someone I follow on Twitter calls it verbena bananarama) and Tithonia have done really well. My sweet William and wallflowers have germinated well and hopefully will flower just as successfully.
Fruit wise we have strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries (actually the birds had them all), apples and tomatoes. We didn’t have such a big raspberry harvest this year but it has meant we didn’t need to give so many away as usually we have way more than we can eat or store!
My perennials have faired pretty well too.
As much as I normally love gardening I find this time of year I have such a long list of jobs to do in the garden getting it ready for winter including moving things, weeding, tidying and bulb planting that I don’t enjoy it as much because I’m just trying to complete my to do list. This year I also have 2 bags of bark chippings to spread, hoping this will reduce the need for so much watering in future dry summers.
This is the second we’ve had this year. I don’t really do fruit but Daddy enjoys growing it. A few years back I had a very strange shaped beef tomato and asked an expert at an RHS show what I was doing wrong and I remember him saying you can’t grow them outside in this country, well the ones we’ve grown this year have once again been grown outside so clearly it’s possible!
Taken in August, this I’ve taken today
My friend and I visited Fryers garden centre in knutsford last week and I got this new rose partly with some birthday vouchers, it smells lovely and fits well beside the alstroemeria of similar colours
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