Six on Saturday. Winter Cheer.

Over Christmas I enjoy early snowdrops and adorable Narcissus ‘Cedric Morris’ shining out in the bleakness of the December garden. But I try not to look at the little noses of bulbs appearing everywhere and I avoid my winter garden. Once we are into January then I can revel in the delights down here and if I haven’t cheated by peeping earlier I get to enjoy the full impact of the winter treasures. I knew the witch hazels were coming out but I wanted to wait until they were at their best before I saw them. So earlier this week when the sun was shining I went down for my January treat and worked in the winter garden which has come to life and is going to look at its best for the next four months. And the witch hazels are looking wonderful.

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Ruby Glow’

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’

‘Jelena’ looks wonderful with a backdrop of Cornus ‘Winter Fire’

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Vesna’

I think my favourite is the well-named ‘Marmalade’.

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Marmalade’

The scent of Witch Hazels is bewitching but is quite elusive, they really need to be brought indoors for the full impact. But never mind, I have two very fragrant shrubs at their best right now. The first is Daphne ‘Perfume Princess’ I say it is at its best, but this lovely daphne is rarely not blooming, although winter into spring is its prime time.

Daphne ‘Perfume Princess’

Chimonanthus praecox is rather a nondescript shrub and is boring in summer. But in winter it comes alive with yellow claw-like flowers with maroon centres. The scent is exquisite and I have a couple of bushes so I always have enough to pick for fragrant posies in the house.

Chimonanthus praecox

Two winter flowering cherries are looking lovely right now. They have such dainty flowers that I like them much better than some of the blowsier spring ones. They are the white Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’ and the pink form ‘Rosea’

Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’

I always thought that sasanqua camellias were supposed to bloom in late autumn and when I bought the lovely red ‘Yuletide’ I hoped it would bloom for Christmas. But I read that this camellia is a hybrid between Camellia japonica and Camellia sasanqua, it should be called Camellia x vernalis. I don’t mind what its called because this little camellia is a beauty and it brightens up a January day in my garden with its bright red flowers, yellow stamens and glossy leaves.

Camellia x vernalis ‘Yuletide’

I have quite a few snowdrops out and I am sure some of them will make their way onto my blog this season but I have some early hellebores out and one which is looking particularly good is ‘Helleborus ‘Leona.’ So I will finish with this. This one has very large flowers and unlike so many of her sisters she faces you instead of looking down at the ground.

Helleborus x hybridus ‘Leona’

Hellleborus x hybridus ‘Leona’

The winter garden has matured nicely since I established it a few years ago and there is so much else to enjoy out here; not just flowers but beautiful coloured stems as well. I shall be revisiting it very soon to show you more of my winter treasures. In the meantime I am joining The Propagator with his popular meme, Six on Saturday. In case you think I still haven’t mastered counting up to six (I know I usually slip in too many) but this week, I am counting the Witch Hazels as one and so that makes it six. I think.

New Year’s Day Dreams.

Sometimes I dream about having manicured acres with topiary and an army of gardeners.

Trentham Gardens

I would love beautiful, original art work in the garden.

Trentham Gardens

A big, fat, stone frog perhaps.

Biddulph Grange

A Japanese tea house…

Bidddulph Grange

And a flock of pink flamingos.

I would love an ancient tower to write in.

Sissinghurst

A wild flower meadow full of native orchids would be wonderful.

Wild flowers Meadow, Great Dixter

And a beautifully maintained walled garden to supply vegetables all year round.

Walled garden, Gravetye Manor

And I would really love a rill and an arboretum of rare and ancient trees. And a long drive lined with lime trees and an infinity swimming pond. And I yearn for an orangery and a massive greenhouse.

But then I look back at the pictures of my house and garden, and I realise I wouldn’t swap them for any of these things. My funny, higgledy- piggledy house was built more than 500 years ago. Upstairs, there are sloping, oak floors and nothing anywhere is even or level. It is a quirky little house, full of character and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. And the garden is my creation and my dream. Some of the trees and plants were planted before our time here and I am grateful for them, but I have redesigned every inch of the garden and made it my own.  Most of the plants have been carefully chosen by me and many of them grown from seed or cuttings.  And it gives me great joy; this is where I belong.

Happy New Year to everybody and thank you for reading my blog. It gives me so much pleasure to share my garden with you, and I enjoy reading all about yours. I hope you will stay with me through 2022 as I have an exciting new project to share with you later in the year. I hope all your new year’s day dreams come true.  And I wish you health and happiness and continued joy in your gardens.

Christmas Tussie -Mussies.

Every Christmas Eve, I like to count how many flowers there are in bloom in my garden. I stroll around and pick a posy for the Christmas table. On a mild, sunny day like today, this is very enjoyable. At first glance there is nothing much to see, but if you poke about there are brave spring flowers popping up too soon as well as summer malingerers, so you end up with representatives from all seasons. I don’t allow any flowers from the greenhouse for this festive vase, that would be cheating.

Here are my two little porcelain, German Heutschenreuther Christmas boots full of little treasures.

This is what I found. In the boot on the right I have a little Christmas rose, Helleborus niger with white heather, Erica carnea , Skimmia ‘Kew Green’, Skimmia rubella and blue Rosemary. White flowered Choisya ternata often blooms in winter, although its main season is May. I don’t know why it is known as Mexican Orange Blossom because it smells quite unpleasant. I have three snowdrops in bloom, ‘Santa Claus’, ‘Three Ships’ and this one ‘Farringdon’s Double’. I could only bear to pick one.

Along with these winter bloomers I have a large lilac flower of Abutilon x Suntense which is definitely out of season. The starry flowers behind the Christmas rose are the stragglers of the climber, Solanum laxum ‘Album’

In the next shot you can see a little purple viola and the unusual green flowers of Rosa viridiflora Some people hate this rose for being so unrose-like but it is very useful for arrangements and blooms for months on end.

In the other boot I have three viburnums, all blooming in their proper season. First my favourite, the dark pink: Viburnum bodnantense ‘ Deben’. Viburnum farreri is paler pink but still pretty and Viburnum tinus is only in my garden under sufferance, but as long as you remove the dingy leaves which smell of dog when wet, the flowers are quite useful for winter arrangements.

I have three yellow flowers here, the spike you can see is Genista spachiana which is still blooming bravely. On the right is the primrose- coloured flower of Coronilla glauca, both of these are fragrant. Winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum blooms abundantly and is very useful for Christmas arrangements. The peachy rose you can see is Rosa ‘Perle d’Or’ which is a little beauty and perfectly formed. I also have a bud of Rosa ‘Bengal Beauty’ in this boot.

Chrysanthemum ‘Chelsea Physic Garden’ is behind the bud of ‘Bengal Beauty’. It is still looking good in the garden and I picked a vase full last week. It is the only Chrysanthemum which carries on until Christmas, I wouldn’t be without it. On the left you can see Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ which doesn’t seem to have noticed that it is winter. And the purple is a lingering penstemon The dainty little pink flowers are Prunus subhirtella autumnalis ‘Rosea’. I hadn’t even noticed that this lovely winter flowering cherry is already in bloom.

So my count this Christmas is 23, it would be 24. but I can’t bear to pick my Narcissus ‘Cedric Morris’ which I showed in my last post.

You might think that you have nothing in bloom in the garden but it is amazing what you find if you hunt around. Vita Sackville West delighted in the old fashioned word ‘Tussie -Mussie’ for a posy and I love it too and what better time to use it than for an old fashioned posy on Christmas Eve?

Christmas this year is pared down for many of us and we are all still under the shadow of this awful pandemic. But I do hope you all have a wonderful, healthy and happy Christmas with your loved ones and all my best wishes for the coming year.

Winter Solstice

It’s always a relief to know that even as the days get colder they won’t get any darker and we will gradually get a bit more afternoon back. This is a dreary time for gardeners when everything looks dank and decaying in the garden and we need a bit of cheering up. And for all of us it is going to be difficult to negotiate Christmas, as once again the pandemic rages. Like many other people, we have had to cancel Christmas as The Pianist has Covid. But we are lucky, because thanks to the double vaccination plus the booster, he only has it mildly. Conspiracy theorists may believe that he has had micro chips implanted by Bill Gates and his DNA has been interfered with. I haven’t checked out all the lunatic theories, so for all I know he will probably be expected to turn into a giant lizard in three months. But we believe in science and we are very grateful for the vaccine.

In the dining room, I have decorated the Christmas tree and made a table arrangement and every day I sit in solitary splendour eating my dinner, which horror of horrors I have to cook, because as well as being a Pianist he is also our chef and normally cooks all our meals. And they are always delicious. He is now confined to the library during the day and gets his meals on trays . It does feel odd keeping him in the other end of the house and spending days apart, but so far I haven’t caught it so I suppose it is worth it.

But outside, I do have something to cheer me up. I thought I had lost my little Narcissus minor ‘Cedric Morris’ because they are very susceptible to Narcissus fly and the shoots were hidden by leaves. But here they are in all the glory bringing little dabs of sunshine into the garden and into my heart. They can usually be relied upon to bloom for Christmas and they haven’t let me down this year. These little daffodils are difficult to find and always expensive. But they are worth every penny. I have written about their history before and you can read it here.

Narcissus minor ‘Cedric Morris’

Every year on Christmas Eve I pick as many different flowers as possible for the table and it is always interesting to find how the flower count varies from year to year. So I shall be back on Friday to share my Christmas flowers with you.

Six on Saturday. Stormy Weather.

As storm Arwen rages bringing chaos to many area we are lucky here in Suffolk to have escaped the worst of its horrors. But still, it’s a horrible day. I nipped out between showers to take some photos.

Every autumn I look at the tan flower buds which appear so late on my Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’ and think how nice it would be if I could see the white, honey-scented flowers opening. But of course hard frosts come before they get the chance. But never mind, the suede- coloured buds look good for now. Tetrapanax papyrifer comes from Taiwan. It is a very impressive plant with huge deeply lobed leaves. It looks very exotic; I grow it next to my hardy banana, Musa basjoo. Most years I wrap up the stems of the banana even though it is supposed to be reasonably hardy. But it has got far too big now so it will have to take a chance.

Tetrapabax papyrifer ‘Rex’

This week I have made a start on cutting back roses, wisteria, jasmine and clematis on the trellis round my secret garden. Here it is in spring with a white wisteria, and in summer with one of my favourite roses, ‘Phyllis Bide’.

It’s

It’s probably the wrong time of year for everything to be cut back but I have a big garden so everything has to be dealt with when I get round to it. This haircut was long overdue; I call it my secret garden but I have to be able to get into it. The bench is nearly hidden by the golden jasmine.

My strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo is covered in clusters of pretty lily-of -the valley type flowers. Anything that blooms in November is extra welcome in my garden.

Arbutus unedo

I have a very pretty broom in the garden which is supposed to be for the conservatory as it is a bit tender. But I forgot to take it in a couple of years ago so here it stays. I hope it will survive another winter as I love it. It is called Genista x spachiana and it is sometimes known as the Easter Broom, it usually flowers in late winter and spring but this year it is coming into flower in November. The flowers are deliciously scented.

It’s too miserable to linger outside so let’s go into the far unheated greenhouse. The tomatoes have been cleared away and the vine cut back. The mimosa won’t be out until February. But I keep my growing collection of cyclamen here. I grow a few varieties from seed each year, but unfortunately the labels seem to go AWOL and it is quite hard to sort them all out. But never mind their names, they all have dainty, helicopter flower and beautiful leaves. And because I have different varieties there is usually something in bloom, many of them are sweetly fragrant. I think the first is Cyclamen purpurescens

Cyclamen purpurescens?

The next is probably Cyclamen mirabile, it has very pretty leaves.

Cyclamen mirabile?

I have some with huge leaves which are very eye-catcning, so far they haven’t flowered, but they are worth growing for their beautiful leaves. They could possibly be Cyclamen africanum because I remember sowing some seeds for this variety.

As I am counting all the cyclamen as just one item, I have one left to complete my Six on Saturday. I have one or two exciting plants coming on in my heated greenhouse and I am looking forward to sharing them with you but they are not quite ready yet. So meanwhile here is my beautiful Fantasy Chrysanthemum ‘Salhouse Joy’. I have to thank to Cathy at Rambling in The Garden who very kindly sent me a cutting a couple of years ago. I am very grateful. I have never grown tender chrysanthemums before and I was delighted to be introduced to the Fantasy series. I am not keen on chrysanthemums with recurved petals which look as if they have spent too much time with an old fashioned hairdresser. But these Fantasy Chrysanthemums are really quirky with their mad Catherine wheel flowers.

Chrysanthemum ‘Salhouse Joy’

Chrysanthemum ‘Salhouse Joy’

Here in the UK, it is certainly not a day for lingering in the garden but you will find some horticultural stalwarts bravely facing storms and mayhem outside to bring you their Six on Saturday. Do go over to our host The Propagator to see.

End of Autumn

I can’t remember a November as beautiful as this one. The leaves have hung on longer than usual and we have been living in a golden, red and russet world. And we have had plenty of blue sky to enjoy, quite unlike the usual foggy, dismal November. Now it has turned cold and the trees will soon be bare. So with thanks for Paul’s photos which are so much better than mine, this is a last glance of the glorious autumn I have been enjoying in my garden.

Cotinus is invaluable for autumn colour.

Cotinus ‘Grace’

Cotinus coggyria

Koelreuteria paniculata ‘Coral Sun’ always looks good in autumn.

Koelreuteria paniculata ‘Coral Sun’

The new part of the garden which was reclaimed a couple of years ago now has trees and shrubs which look quite mature.

I have kept a wide path along the fence to get round to the top part of the garden. It has a carpet of gold at the moment.

But this part of the garden really belongs to the wildlife. Mr. and Mrs. Muntjac have made themselves quite at home down here. I wish they would find somewhere else to live, they chew everything and they are particularly partial to my roses. They look at me as if to say: ‘What are you doing here?’ when I go down the garden.

Mrs. Muntjac sunning herself

We have a wild life camera and it is amazing what a very busy highway this is at night with deer, badgers and foxes making nightly visits.

Six on Saturday. 20.11.21.

We have had a beautiful, extended autumn here with hardly any frost and the wonderful colours hanging on for weeks. Koelreuteria paniculata ‘Coral Sun’ in the background to the right is living up to its name, but the liquidamber has barely started its annual bonfire of colours.

So I will be seasonal and start my six with some bright berries. The brightest is of course, Callicarpa bodinieri with its profusion of long lasting, shiny amethyst- coloured berries.

Callicarpa bodinieri

Callicarpa is a bit boring when it is not bearing its astonishing berries, but my next berry bush, Clerodendron trichotomum var. Fargesii has fragrant starry flowers in summer. This shrub comes from China and I am not sure if I like the strong scent of the flowers, but I love its jolly turquoise blue berries which are revealed when the scarlet calyces split open. Actually, to be pedantic, I think we should call these berries drupes. But whatever they are called, they are very eye-catching.

Clerodendron trichotomum var. Fargesii

I have already given my Euonymus hamiltonianus ‘Miss Pinkie’ an airing on this blog but she is still looking very pretty in pink, specially now the leaves have fallen off. She looks lovely against the silvery leaves of Cistus creticus which started its life here as a cutting; an illegal immigrant from Crete. As ‘Miss Pinkie’ was born from a found berry, I should call this corner of the garden ‘Crook’s Corner’ .

Euonymus hamiltonianus ‘Miss Pinkie’

As I have several other November beauties to share today I shall bend the rules a bit and put all three berries into number one. Frost is threatened for next week so perhaps we should celebrate some hangers on from summer. Salvias are still going strong all round the garden and there are plenty of roses. Farrer called roses that hang on into winter ‘withered moths‘ but nobody could call the wonderful China roses that are barely out of bloom ‘withered moths’ . I think flights of butterflies would be more appropriate. I have two China roses, both of them with beautiful single flowers. It is difficult to choose a favourite, but the superb ‘Bengal Beauty’ has masses of red flowers which right now look lovely in front of the fiery autumn colours of Cotinus coggyria. Unfortunately, today is a dull day so that it doesn’t shine as it did yesterday.

Rosa x odorata ‘Bengal Beauty”

Rosa x odorata ‘Bengal Beauty’

For some reason that I don’t understand, roses that I always knew as Rosa chinensis now seem to be known as Rosa x odorata so I must have missed something. The next one is called ‘Mutabilis’ which is a good name as the colour of the flowers range from honey-yellow to apricot to pink.

Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’

I grow several alstroemerias and most of them are long gone. But my favourite seems to pump out flowers until the first frost. It is called Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’; it has dark foliage and flowers which are lovely sunset colours. This makes an excellent cut flower, so next year I shall get some more, a bed of them would be lovely.

Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’

November is a bit niggardly when it comes to flowering shrubs, but you can always depend on the yellow racemes of Mahonia x media ‘Charity’. I love the shrub for its architectural, shiny foliage and abundance of fragrant flowers which lighten up the gloomiest day. It needs to have a haircut in the spring after flowering to keep it compact, otherwise it can get a bit leggy.

Mahonia x media ‘Charity’

Mahonia x media ‘Charity’

For my last two plants I am going into the greenhouse. People are always surprised to see snowdrops in the autumn, but there are several which bloom in October and December and they are always welcome. My October one, Galanthus reginae-olgae has been and gone and my November-blooming Galanthus ‘Barnes’ was looking lovely a few days ago with nice plump flowers but it has been eaten by some horrible gastropod. But in the greenhouse I have a pot of dainty Galanthus peshmenii looking lovely. This snowdrop comes from the Aegean and our winters are probably too wet for it to survive outside.

Galanthus peshmenii

Also still going strong in the greenhouse, I have the climbing Mimulus aurantiacus I think this plant comes from California, it blooms for months on end and I love its little monkey faces. It has sticky leaves and used to be called Mimulus glutinosus. Trying to keep up with these name changes is a full time job.

Mimulus aurantiacus

So there we have my Six on Saturday on this gloomy November day. I know there are probably nine in fact, but I never was any good at counting. Do go over to the Propagator who hosts Six on Saturday and you will find plenty of keen gardeners who have plenty to show us even though our gardens are winding down for the winter.

In a Vase on Monday. Mum’s the Word.

November seems more like October this year with the glorious autumn colours carrying on well into what is usually a dismal month. I always used to dislike this gloomy time of the year in the garden, but that was before I discovered hardy chrysanthemums. They start blooming in September but I seek out the later-flowering ones which start in October and carry on into November. They light up the garden in rainbow colours, but they are also long lasting in a vase. I still have dahlias in bloom but most years I rely on chrysanthemums for vibrant late colour.

I set them off with a few plumes of various grasses. This rare Chrysanthemum ‘Buxton Ruby’ is the darkest one I have. It has sprays of frilly little flowers with a yellow daisy centre.

Chrysanthemum ‘Buxton Ruby’

Autumn colours are here with the apricots, orange and yellows. Chrysanthemum ‘Picasso’ is rather rare. It is fully double with masses of small apricot flowers. It makes quite a compact plant .

Chrysanthemum Picasso’

Chrysanthemum ‘Picasso’

As well as oranges and bronzes I have quite a few yellow chrysanthemums, the one I used here is Chrysanthemum ‘Cottage Lemon’. It is still going strong although the asters in the photo which I took a few weeks ago are over now. So the clump no longer looks like a fried egg, sunny side up.

Chrysanthemum Cottage Lemon’

Chrysanthemum ‘Cottage Lemon’ Chrysanthemum ‘Chelsea Physic Garden’

The vibrant bronze one in the centre is perhaps my favourite chrysanthemum of all. It is the peerless Chrysanthemum ‘Chelsea Physic Garden’ which has double flowers with golden lights on the backs of the petals. It lasts late into the year and I sometimes pick it on Christmas Day.

Chrysanthemum ‘Chelsea Physic Garden’

I have popped a few pinks in the vase; I probably wouldn’t mix these colours in summer but at this time of the year I am happy to have a kaleidoscope of clashing colours. One of my favourite pinks has quilled pink flowers and was discovered in a garden here in Suffolk. It is called ‘Mavis Smith’ and makes very vigourous plant.

Chrysanthemum ‘Mavis Smith’

I have just one white chrysanthemum and it has lovely raggy white double flowers. It is called ‘Edelweiss’. It really lights up the vase.

Chrysanthemum ‘Edelweiss’

For the dining table I made a little arrangement in a little Danish vase which I am rather fond of .

I used some sprigs of Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ which always blooms in November and various salvias which are still lingering

Chrysanthemum ‘Marion’ has a lovely, semi-double coppery-orange flower with a yellow ring round the centre

The pink double one in the above photo is a Jaapanese chrysanthemum called ‘Kei Kyo’. It looks lovely growing with blue Salvia uliginosa annd the red butterfy flowers of the China Rose ‘Bengal Beauty’ which is in bloom for months on end.

If I still haven’t persuaded you to try growing chrysanthemums to fill up your October and November vases, then here are a few more.

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Many thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for encouraging us to go out on a gloomy day looking for flowers to put In a Vase on Monday.

In a Vase on Monday. November.

‘No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds-

November !’ Thomas Hood.

Clearly, Thomas Hood was having a bad day when he wrote his famous November poem, and clearly he didn’t grow chrysanthemums. My garden is full of colour at the moment, provided by these autumn beauties but they are not for today. Over at Rambling in the Garden, Cathy’s meme In a Vase on Monday is 8 years old today and she has challenged us to celebrate it by sharing a vase with no fresh blooms. I have been a bit lax about keeping up with my blog lately. Other things have got in the way and after seven years I feel I am saying the same things again and again. However, there will be some exciting new developments next year to write about and meanwhile I can’t let my lovely friend’s anniversary pass by unremarked by me. Most years I grow quite a range of flowers for drying, but this year I didn’t bother so I had to comb the garden to see what I could find. I used my old Staffordshire Ironstone autumn fruits jug to display them in.

Natural daylight makes them look a little washed out so I used the flash for the next photo.

I have recycled some flowers from a previous vase which I had kept to see how the flowers would dry. This is how the Mathiasella bupleurides looked in a vase in July. The flowers are green at first and then get flushed with red.

With the dried flower heads I used the seed heads of eryngiums, nigella and Clematis rehderiana. This is a lovely primrose- coloured, late flowering clematis which seeds about profusely. The seed heads are pretty too.

Clematis rehderiana

The brown seed head is from my Tree Peony and the curly twigs are from Meulenbergia astonii which is such a wonderful feature of my winter garden. The bright orange berries are from Iris foeditissima which seeds all over the garden. Other touches of orange come from the seed heads of crocosmia. Grasses are lovely for this sort of arrangement, I have used the fluffy heads of pennisetums, molinia and miscanthus and a few sprigs of Briza media saved along with the Mathiasella bupleuroides.

Miscanthus and nigella seedhead

Pennisetums and Molinia ‘Transparent’

Hood’s dismal description of November seems far from the truth today. The sun is shining, I spotted a Red Admiral butterfly on the dahlias which are still going strong and a little robin followed me round the garden. And I just spotted this little ladybird who had hitchhiked a ride into the house.

Congratulations to Cathy who has kept up with this popular meme for so long and who has brought so much pleasure to people all round the world. It is lovely to bring flowers into the house and share them, specially as the the weather gets colder. I have popped in and out of In a Vase on Monday for the last seven years, but even when I don’t find time to share my vase, I still pick flowers and I enjoy seeing what other people have produced. Thanks Cathy.

Six on Saturday. Autumn Bounty.

I have had a rather long blogging holiday as other writing commitments have rather taken over the last few weeks and sometimes life gets in the way. But I’m still here and so is the garden. In fact, late summer and early autumn provide waves of floral delights with an abundance of dahlias, Michaelmas daisies and colchicums; I am sorry I let them go by unrecorded. And now the chrysanthemums have started too and will carry the garden into November.

Today, I have been looking around for special treats and I was stopped in my tracks by the blooms of one of my tree dahlias blooming way above my head. These are hybrids of Dahlia imperialis bred by Keith Hammett in New Zealand. So far all my seedlings have turned out to be pink. They grow to an enormous height and then start blooming late in the season. But even the ones without flowers provide an impressive presence in my exotic garden.

Trees and shrubs are colouring up and fruits and berries are everywhere. I have quite a few spindles grown from seed and they are all looking lovely at the moment. This one is a seedling of Euonymus hamiltonianus ‘Miss Pinkie’. Some of the spindles get bright red leaves in autumn, but on this one they turn yellow as the days get colder.

Hesperantha coccinea is always a useful plant for early autumn. As long as the plants don’t get too dry, it spreads beautifully into nice big clumps. The only drawback is that the flower spikes tend to loll about a bit. I have it in red, pink and white; my favourites are the white and pink.

Hesperantha coccinea. ‘White Form’

Hesperantha coccinea ‘Pink Surprise’

My big treat in October is the blooming of my nerine collection in the greenhouse. It has got rather out of hand. I could ramble on about my nerines for a long time, but on this occasion I will confine myself to just one. This next picture is one of my latest; it is called Nerine ‘Lipstick’. I think I shall have to come back to the nerines another day.

Nerine ‘Lipstick’

I suppose an autumn bounty blog should include fruit. I have apples, pears and quinces but in the greenhouse I have grapes. These are a bit of a disappointment because in a previous greenhouse I had a wonderful golden Muscat grape and I thought that this was going to be the same. It was wrongly labelled and these black grapes are very sweet, but not what I was expecting. Still, it does bear loads of fruit.

Like all vegetable gardeners I have had lots of courgettes and also patty pan squash which look just like flying saucers. But my daughter gave me some plants of these ‘Uchiki Kuri’ squash and I am looking forward to sampling them. My chef is a bit baffled as to what he is supposed to do with them, but I think they keep quite well while he works something out.

Squash ‘Uchi Kuri’

So there we have just a small taste of what is happening here in the blooming garden right now. I shall be back soon, but first I have a lot of catching up with other blogs to do. Meanwhile do check out the Propagator and all his enthusiastic followers. He seems to be doing a lot of running at the moment; 100 miles is an awful lot of running. I doubt if I could run 100 yards, so I am amazed by people who do this sort of thing . But don’t worry, you don’t have to run to enjoy Six on Saturday.