04.11. Pretty fuchsias

It is still nice and mild here in London, what a difference from last year! By this time last year we had already had snow and many nights with frost. The obligatory November rain has arrived though, so this week I haven’t been doing much gardening, but my garden really needed that rain so I don’t mind that much.

I have had a busy week, hospital appointments every day except for Monday, and I was supposed to go to UCH Hospital today to see the orthopaedic surgeon, but my hospital transport didn’t turn up! I sat here for 4 hours waiting for it, until it finally was too late to take the journey all the way in to Central London as the clinic was closing at 4:30. Apparently there was some bad congestion on the main road up to where I live, and when I called the transport office to enquire, they called the driver to hear what was going on. He said he had no idea when he would arrive! So today has really been a wasted day, just sitting here waiting. I finally had to call the clinic again and re-book my appointment, which normally means waiting for at least 6 months, but I think the receptionist felt sorry for the situation I had ended up in, at no fault of my own, so she made a double booking for me for beginning of December. Only another month to wait then, so not too bad.

Yesterday, before going for yesterday’s hospital appointment, and dodging some really heavy showers, I took some photos in my garden. It is amazing what is still flowering out there compared to last November, but with no cold weather to speak of yet, they just keep on flowering. Like the fuchsias for example. Aren’t they pretty? These are called Annabel and are sold as annuals, but I hope they will survive the winter and come back bigger and better next year.

I have 4 of these Annabel fuchsias, and they flower even in deep shade. This particular one has never had any direct sunshine at all, and seems to thrive just as well as those in dapple shade. They started flowering very late, because of the relatively cold June, July and August we had, but when fuchsias start flowering they just go on and on until after a couple of frost nights. I bought them as mini plants, 4 plants for £5 and they were really tiny when I got them, but have grown really well over the summer. If they survive the winter I will consider them a really good investment :-)

I had a photo of one of my white cyclamen here some days ago, and now most of the other cyclamens have started flowering too. Here is a lovely pink one with lots of tiny buds hidden under the leaves. If they get enough water over the winter they will keep on flowering until late May providing I regularly keep pinching off the seed heads. Cyclamens are tubers, and can rot if they get too much water, but they don’t like to get too dry either, so it’s important to check them now and then over the winter. My cyclamens are spread out under a huge, tall cedar tree at the bottom of my garden, the ground is quite dry and it needs to rain quite hard for the water to fall down between the branches. It is an ideal place for the cyclamens to grow; they like the woodland environment, but it can get too dry under the tree so sometimes I have to water this area, even if the rest of the garden is OK.

And here is one of the oldest cyclamens; it is just as bright red as in this photo. By the time I was trying to photograph this one, the heavens had opened again, and it started pouring down. You can see that some of the leaves are wet already, and the photo isn’t completely sharp, as I am trying to dodge the rain whilst focusing on the plant! Photographing plants require optimal weather; not too windy, as with macro photography, it doesn’t take much of a breeze for the object to leave the viewfinder! And not raining, as neither the camera nor I like to get wet :-)

So that was all the photos I managed to take yesterday. My next post will be post number 100, and I thought I would mark that a bit. I can’t really believe that I actually have written 100 posts already, and when I started this blog in January this year I wasn’t even sure if this was something I was going to continue with to the end of that month! I’ve got some nice photos for you for my next post, some unusual photos, no flowers or plants, but they are taken in my garden. I’m saying no more, you’ll have to come back and have a look tomorrow. See you then, take care.