Sunset 14th November Autumn into WInter

It's been great to see the return of some lovely sunsets this week after a period of cloud and rain. Tonight was a real pleasure to watch, it looked lovely in all directions and changed from pale pastels to quite intense shades of pink and purple in the North...

And fast changing oranges and yellows with hints of purples in the South West (which became very fiery near the end before softening off at the end as the street lights came on. The trees have lost nearly all their leaves now but as long as some are still clinging on my head thinks it is Autumn, but dropping temperatures and early sunsets are telling a more Wintery story (this took place over 12 minutes from 5.17pm)

Pink and Purple May flowers & foliage

Hard to get the colours right on screen, the Azalea is pink but the others are all a tad more lilac or purple than they look here. Azalea 'Girard's Hotshot', Hebe, Wallflower Erysimum Bowles Mauve and 3 shots of Tulip Attilla which I was amazed survived the wet winter as it's in clay soil.

What's happy in the back garden today...

In the March garden

Kerria buds, Spirea, Hellebore, Daffodils unknown, Daffodils 'Tete a Tete', Lilac leaves, Pieris 'Cupido', Cricus 'Ruby Giant' with Heather unknown, Kerria in flower, Flowering Currant.

So much grew and flowered in March, especially blossom which I would have expected in April and May. There will be a bit of a blank period in those months now but it was amazing to see everything flowering at once - Magnolia, both Cherry trees, Forsythia, Amelanchier, Kerria, Flowering Currant and so much more. I've not had time to get my other 100's of plant pics on to the computer yet. Will try.

More Winter Colours

Indoor Hyacinth is more vivid than than outdoor plants in January

This was about 2 weeks ago, still in flower but determined to fall over at every opportunity. I usually grow them in soil and can pop a skewer in as support, not very attractive with a hyacinth vase. Out in the garden the pinks are paler, which fits well with the grey greens and frosted leaves.


Clematis stems with their own brand of winter beauty

Hydrangea Petiolaris (Climbing Hydrangea) has straddled the shed roof.

Clematis 'Markham's Pink' seed head

Osteospermum (perennial)

Frosty Hebe, the one I posted the frosty close-up of the other day.

I intended to do a big post of art that looked liked winter gardens but I need to sleep, here are two, hopefully I'll have time for more later in the week but family are in town so I may not blog much.

The work of paper artist Peter Gentenaar looking like a winter flower.

Paperstring chandelier by Nithikul Nimkulrat.

Winter Garden Colours

Winter sunset behind the tall birch trees

After the last post of silvery frosted leaves I wanted to show that the garden isn't without colour. And Liz, the little colour palettes are for you, so you could see what the family version of my plant book looks like in places.

The Hydrangea above it was a bit of a surprise, I was convinced the heads would have been ripped apart by the gales but the constant winds all year have toughened up all the plants so many things have held up well. Although I'm not really a fan of bright blousey Hydrangeas I do love them once they start to fade though I'd never seen them that way until I inherited this one with the garden.

Heuchera 'Georgia Peach' is a favourite with varying shades of deep pinks, mulberry and marmalade shades depending on season and weather conditions. I've got several new Heucheras with equally wonderful colours but they are tiny plug plants just now. Heucheras take a long time to bulk up in my garden so I'm giving them 3 years until they have enough leaves for good photos.

We've not had as many lovely sunsets as usual so when I spotted this one I had to capture it. If only I could have successfully photographed the 1000's of starlings that were doing their daily sunset flight in front of it. Absolutely mesmerising, but impossible for my camera to capture in such dim light.

Autumn chills

Unexpected chrysanthemum bloom like a firework


Achillea, flowering late after a move in Spring.


Aster 'Tonga' unperturbed by foul weather.


The weather has been so bad I've not even planted my Spring bulbs. The few still dry days we've had have been dedicated to getting the house watertight before winter. We started early so it would be finished by October but after discovering part of the house was about to collapse - the 3 day joinery job has now been 3 weeks so far, and there hasn't been time to even think about getting the heating fixed. I'm getting a bit anxious since they are predicting another hard winter. Last year the big snow blast that halted the country arrived in late November. Hopefully this year everyone is prepared and if it happens we'll deal with it in a less embarrassingly pathetic manner. Snowy countries must have thought we were complete wimps since all our news reports made it sound like the most extreme natural disaster had hit us.

Yesterday the rain stopped for a bit and I really wanted to get out planting, but instead I had to rehang a door (no fun having front door and inner door unattached in go around filling all the gaps I found in the walls and windows as the rain or wind came through them the day before. I hate missing the last bits of colour outside, and have hardly managed to get any photo's with the wind so constant, but here are a few of the Autumn flowers in the garden.


Pyracantha berries at their Autumnal best.


Cherry 'Spire' still good on a grey day despite 1/3 of it's leaves being whipped away in September gales.

Other things doing well just now are the flowers of the large Sedums (the 'ice plant' kind), amazing red leaves on most of the Blueberries, gold and orange leaves on the Enkianthus & Amelanchier. The Rowans lost their leaves a few weeks ago (gales again) so there is more light around for the several other annuals and perrenials still in flower like Dianthus, Verbena, Heather, Primrose (they think it's Spring), Rudbeckia, Lamium, Sweet Peas, Scabious, Lychnis and even some Foxgloves.

Time to buy tulips

Tulips amid Brunnera at Inwood Garden in Spring


For Liz, me in an actual skirt beside Lathyrus vernus at Inwood Garden

Yes, it's the time of year when many of us are excitedly thinking about Spring, even though Autumn hasn't kicked in. It's bulb t buying time. For most Spring bulbs we can buy and plant now, but with Tulips they prefer it if we wait until October at the earliest before popping them in , so there is time to ponder what will work. The examples above are from Inwood Garden, just South of Edinburgh in April this year.

I've never seen quite such an amazing display of Tulips in a garden, there were 1000's, some grouped in pots near the entrance, others planted in borders. Many were very artfully coordinated with the trees and shrubs that were coming into leaf which doubled their beauty. I was actually a bit speechless, which is very unusual. Unfortunately the sun was so bright most of my photo's were hard to make out. The ones above were in teh shade but all the others were in full sun.


Tulips toned perfectly with Hosta at Inwood Garden.


Tulips in the borders at Inwood Garden

It was during that amazing 2 weeks of hot, dry gloriously sunny April weather, before the month of gales, when we joked that maybe that was going to be Summer over. Turns out it was fairly true. I'm glad I made myself go out that day and enjoy other people's gardens (also went to Shepherd house, another gorgeous local garden). My own display was much more humble, but brought us equal joy and over a surprisingly long period, eben through all the bad weather. It was pure luck that the Tulips matched the Honesty so well.


Tulip Atilla (purple) and Shirley (cream, but develops purple edges over time)


The Honesty flowered until July, it just kept getting bushier and taller.


Lovely with the Honesty & Tulips was Wallflower 'Bowles Mauve', still flowering now!

I found a rough guide to which tulips showing which varieties flower when, at what height and rating their ability to naturalize. See the original information here. Here's a mini version:

Greigii

early Mar-April

8-14" (20-35cm)

Excellent

Fosteriana

mid Mar-April

8-10" (20-25cm)

Excellent

Kaufmanniana

March-April

6-10" (15-25cm)

Excellent

Species

some in March

8 - 14" (20-35cm)

Excellent

Single Early

late Mar-Early Apr

10-18" (25-46cm)

Average

Double Early

early-mid April

12" (30cm)

Average

Triumph

mid Apr-Early May

20" (30cm)

Above Average

Darwin Hybrid

mid April - May

18-24" (46-60cm)

Excellent

Single Late

late April - May

18-30" (46-75cm)

Above Average

Parrot Tulips

May

20-26" (50-65cm)

Average

Lily-flowered

May

18-30" (46-75cm)

Excellent

Double Late

late May

18-24" (45-60cm)

Average

Viridiflora

mostly May

18-30" (46-75cm) usually

Average

Fringed

Depends on variety

Depends on variety

Average

A slice of July

The most beautiful way a pest could destroy your multicoloured Kale, and other photo's from the garden last month...





Because I've not been well enough to garden much I like to grab a bit of everything when I can to bring inside. Below is the result of a 30 minute haul towards the end of July. There were plenty of things missed but that was OK because there wasn't barely room for so many flowers in the house. My bettery ran out befoer getting photo's of the most sculptural jar of eucalyptus, allium christophii, heuchera and pink seed podded honesty. The honesty has been amazing this year changing from green, to deepest purple and now to shades of pink, shown here in this photo from one of the plants outside on top right of this montage of July flowers...


The leaves of Brunnera 'Jack Frost' are turning from white to a metallic silver and really set of the purples and plums of the Sangiusorba, Clematis, Astilbe, Berberis and Heuchera.

Also enjoyed this week lovely colours and themes in Daphne's posts Frill and Vroom Vroom.