October GBBD in London

It’s that time again, Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, and I can’t understand it’s a whole month since last GBBD post! October so far has been chilly and the rain we didn’t get all September we certainly have got the last 2 weeks. I went outside yesterday to take some photos for this post, in pouring rain with an umbrella, realising that I had not been out in the garden for more than a week because it’s been raining every time I wanted to go outside.  The forecast is promising us some warmer weather the next 4-5 days, and possibly no rain during the day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday – but you never know, that might change again by the time we get to the end of the week.

If you thought my garden was a bit of a jungle last month then look at it now! This is the usual angle I take my monthly photo from and you can’t really see that I have started pruning and pulling up plants, and just sent off 4 rubbish bags to the council’s composting service.

The path down the middle is even narrower now, as I have started taking pots out of the beds and put them on the left side of the path.

The pots need to come out of the beds in preparation for the emerging spring bulbs. Yes, that’s right, spring bulbs! You see, in my garden, spring happens early, very early. The first crocuses and daffodils will start to emerge in December and the first hellebores are in flower in December. That’s only 2 months till. I have been too late before taking pots out of the beds, only to find some feeble, scrawny and pale crocus and daffodil shoots, trying desperately to find some light. So all the pots need to come out by end of October, and as you can see here, what I am left with is large empty areas in the flower beds, just waiting for the bulbs to wake up. Spring is just a few months away :-)

But this summer ended just 2 weeks ago, and September was really good here, so good that my chrysanthemum didn’t understand what time of year it was. This huge potted chrysanthemum is usually in full flower for my birthday every year, but my birthday was last week and it will be a few more weeks before this plant is in full glory. It just hasn’t been cold enough at night for it I guess.

I harvested all the tomatoes last Sunday, in pouring rain, it’s so cold at night now, and only 15-16 degrees C at daytime so I assume they won’t ripe outside. I have left the chillies though, hopefully they will continue to ripe.

All the tomatoes are in this box....

....together with 2 ripe bananas. I guess it will take a small miracle to ripen all these cherry tomatoes this way, I have never tried it before but I’ll have a go. Hopefully the pale pink ones will get properly red at least. The box is stored in a dark cupboard, I have no idea how long it will take but I assume the bananas will be off in a few days!

Back out in the rain again. And it was really raining hard, although you can’t see that on my photos, but I was worried for my camera getting wet. It is very difficult to take photos under an umbrella – with one crutch.

I cleared the bottom of the garden about 10 days ago, all the pots are out on the path here too as here is where I have most of the spring bulbs. I have already found the first new hellebore shoot so things are on schedule there too.

That doesn’t mean my garden has given up for this year, far from it. The dahlias are still going strong and producing lots of new flowers. This is 'Striped Vulcan'.

And this is Dahlia Nuit D'Ete’.

Here is a project I haven’t showed off yet, my attempt to make Fuchsia standards. I have seen them in catalogues and on TV, and I have wanted to have a go myself for a long time, so last year I made two cuttings of Fuchsia 'Mrs Popple' and after a year of growing and pinching side shoots, this is the result. I am sorry the photos are not better, but at the moment the two pots are attached to one of the clematis obelisks for safety as I don’t want to risk them toppling over and breaking. The stems are about 160 cm tall, much taller than I planned, but they just grew and grew, so quickly! They were not meant to be topped until next spring, in year two, but with the climate I have in my garden they would probably have been 2m tall by then so I just had to cut off the top a few weeks ago to stop them from growing any taller. Now I just have to see if I can get them through the colder periods of the winter without dying....

Here is the second clematis obelisk in my garden, not with fuchsias, but with Clematis 'Ville de Lyon'. I cut it down in the beginning of August as it was suffering badly from mildew, and now it has grown 2m tall and has lots of new flower buds and a few flowers out already. I did wonder what such a late pruning would result in, and here is the answer, this clematis looks just like it usually does in May :-)

And now some more fuchsias, they are doing really well in the wet, cool weather we have now. This is ‘Bella Rosella’ a one year old cutting.

And here are two 'Perpetual Falls' with a rather wet and sorry looking Rose 'Susan Williams-Ellis' in front.

And this is the amazing Fuchsia 'Annabel' with 'Velvet Crush' in the container in the background. They have now all been flowering non-stop since July last year, so that means they are now flowering in their 16th month in a row!!

I do have some roses too, but they don’t like the wet windy weather much – this is ‘Rob Roy.

The aster doesn’t mind the wet so much, this white one is Aster ageratoides 'Ashvi', a fabulous aster for complete shade – it receives no sun at all and hardly any light to be honest, but seems happy enough. The purple is a chrysanthemum, a newcomer and still in the pot, I am not sure it will be equally happy in this position so it might end up on the opposite bed eventually. It is called chrysanthemum 'Ruby Mound' and the colour is even better than on this photo.            

There are more red flowers around, this gerbera has been dormant all summer but suddenly decided to put on a show again.

I tried to find some red roses in the garden to show you, but they had all gone with the hard rain or the wind, there are lots to come though, with buds everywhere, both red and yellow roses.

Here is another newcomer that has finally decided to grace me with some flowers, Alstromeria ‘Dandy Candy’, a beautiful colour. I hope this will be a lovely big plant this time next year.

And no flower in sight here, just a tapestry of lovely heuchera, they are all in pots, should have been planted long time ago really, so that’s a task for when we get some nicer days. I think they will be happier in the ground as they have all outgrown their pots.

Just a few photos from the front too, the water fall of flowers is still there, although one of the Calibrachoas has died, leaving a gap. I would have liked to plant the winter bedding soon, but I really don’t have the heart to rip out all these flowers when they look as good as this. I guess it will be late December this year too before I buy and plant my winter bedding – which means the availability of plants will be limited.

Oh well, perhaps I just leave them until spring this year, you never know, if we are lucky and get a winter like last year they would survive just fine. Can you see the bush in the red container to the left, next to my front door? It is a 10 year old Garrya elliptica 'James Roof' – if it had been growing in the ground it could have been 4m tall and wide!! I have root pruned it only once, when changing the compost, and otherwise left it to itself. The garrya receives no fertiliser but gets watered when the other plants in the front gets water. Every other year I am treated to an amazing display of catkins, long tassels of flowers that looks like pearls.

And although they won’t open until February or so, they have already started to develop. From the amount of tassels this time, I can already see it will be a great display.

One last fuchsia, this one had a hard prune about a month ago, so I could get some daylight into my living room again, the reward is lots of new flowers.

As I mentioned, last Thursday was my birthday, and here is one of my presents, a red rose I have wanted for years. It’s called ‘Ingrid Bergman’ and the roses are absolutely beautiful. I already have two other red roses in my garden, ‘Crimson Cascade’ and ‘Rob Roy’, but all three look different from each other both in shape, colour, size and how they grow. Besides, I can’t get enough of red roses :-)

Speaking of which, my aunt gave me 50 red roses for my birthday, one for each year! I know this post is supposed to be about what’s growing in my garden, but I just thought I would end today with showing off the roses I got, they are so beautiful, and will last for such a short time so I am trying to make the most of them while they last. They came in this basket, placed in oasis, and roses in oasis don’t last very long, 3-5 days usually....

....so after 3 days I took them all out and placed them in water around the house to try to make them last for as long as possible. I have now roses on my coffee table in the big glass bowl.

And on the side of my sofa in a vase, next to more flowers.

And even in my bathroom in a vase.

And in my kitchen in two more vases. I can assure you, the roses are even more beautiful than my camera can show.

That’s it for October’s GBBD, next post will be on the 31st October with a video from my garden for the ‘End of Month View’, hope to see you back here then. Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Garden for hosting the GBBD meme, If you head over to her blog you can see many more gardens in flower around the world right now. Until next time, take care.



UPDATE:

I had a look inside the box with the tomatoes today. There was a distinct musty smell and a few tomatoes had started to become a bit hairy. A closed plastic box was obviously not the thing….Although as you can see, a few tomatoes have gone red since I put them in 4 days ago. Well, on to Google for some more info.

Luckily Amazon delivered me something today in a nice cardboard box that just happened to be very suitable for my tomatoes - so I threw away the few tomatoes in one corner that had started growing fungus, the rest I rummaged through to get the few that had got nicely red and tipped the green ones into the box. Apparently there is no need for a lid, and no need for bananas or any other fruit either, all the tomatoes need is a warm, dark cupboard, a cardboard box and some patience. The cupboard under my stairs keeps around 23 degrees most of the time, a bit lower during the night but not much, I will keep the tomatoes there, take out the bananas when they have gone black, and see how it goes!