I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm having to pretend it's winter down here in rainy Cornwall, but while there has been frost on the car a couple of times, we've had nothing to do any damage. There are odds and ends of flowers everywhere, but mostly bedraggled and looking sorry for themselves. So…
End of month view – November 2017
I first contributed to Helen's end of month view two years ago so I now have the same view of the garden for the last three years. It's like visiting a town you've not been to in years; most of it is unchanged and familiar, a few bits have changed completely. In the garden a large magnolia, clump…
Hakonechloa
If ever there were a plant that gives of its best when it's needed the most, it's Hakonechloa. I took the picture above under heavily overcast skies and with a hint of drizzle in the air. I have done nothing to enhance the colour of the Hakonechloa as it assumes its autumn raiment. The foliage…
Six on Saturday – 25/11/2017
This morning has a flavour of winter about it. Sleet showers and the sunrise getting weird through them. Car didn't want to start. Flowers are in short supply now, except for a few that I've already used recently. We still haven't had any frost to speak of so the big move in has proceeded in…
Six on Saturday – 18/11/2017
Once more I can avoid having to think too hard about items to include as there are odd little planty things going on that I can report on. We had just a suggestion of ground frost yesterday but I haven't seen any damage, even Fuchsia boliviana is unscathed. This morning's sunrise was lovely, it's cold but only just…
Allotment update.
During the summer I was up to my plot at least every other day, now it's more like every other week. Such crops as I have still standing seem to include several that have not covered themselves in glory this year, rusty leeks, piddling little parsnips, moth eaten spinach. Cauli's were not bad, but you…
Six on Saturday – 11/11/2017
At this time of year you can be sure that all the better gardening magazines will have an article urging you not to cut down your grasses and herbaceous perennials but to leave them to enjoy their structure and shape when white with rime on those cold frosty but sunny winter mornings that we get…
Two pictures.
I came across a picture of the garden from June 2005 and, struck by the number of plants that we no longer have, tried to take exactly the same picture as it looks now. I worry sometimes that the garden has become too static, that I am too slow to make alterations. Not so,…
Six on Saturday – 4/11/2017
I have to admit it's not getting any easier to find six things to include here. Time seems to be slowing down; instead of there being lots of new things flowering or shooting or going over, it's all much the same as a week ago. A sharp frost would at least draw a line in the…
End of month view – October 2017
This time last year the Acer on the left was still covered with leaves. Two years ago it was bare. It also had a backdrop of a magnolia which is now gone. Not much else is different. The real bareness of winter hasn't hit yet and there are still bits and pieces of flower to…
garden ruminations 