EOMV– from a stormy London

November has already had 2 storms here and a lot of bad weather, and UK is now gearing up for a third storm, apparently a really bad one, named Clodagh. First came Abigail and Barney, then we had frost for the first time in....I can’t remember how long ago....2 years? 3 years, perhaps more? To be honest, I can’t remember a frost this early ever before. All my dahlias just blackened and went to mush from one day to the next. I can’t remember that happen ever, if we have had frost it has usually been much later, more like February. Clodagh has already arrived on the west coast, and is said to bring strong winds, rain and snow, here in London it’s just been windy today and I don’t think it will make much impact here, certainly not in my sheltered garden. And there won’t be any snow, the forecast is for 10-14 degrees C at daytime and 5-11 at night. But the wind is bad enough to make gardening a rather chilly experience.

Since my last EOMV post a month ago I haven’t done much in the garden, too wet, too windy, but I am trying to be out here when I can, at least for a little while.

This photo is deceptively nice and calm, you can see on the video further down what it actually was like!

This is one thing I have done since my last post! Last Saturday a week ago, on the only day with frost in years, I received my 75 strawberry plants, bare root and all muddled up with old leaves and tangled roots. I sat in my shed and potted them, all of them. I was so glad I had a shed as it was cold enough in there, wrapped up in a big fleece throw, imagine how cold it would have been outside. A good heater for the shed is on my Christmas wish list!

It turned out the nursery had sent me a good few extra so all in all I had 89 strawberry plants. I am not keeping all of them, that would be too much, so some have already gone to new homes and more will follow later on. But here in my new raised bed I have planted 16 plants – 3 different varieties. Can’t wait to start harvesting the first ones! I should have strawberries for about 4 months having early, mid-season and late variety, time will tell if that works. The varieties I have are: 'Honeoye','Cambridge Favourite' and 'Florence'.

I have also made provisions for the birds in the garden and a set of fat balls are up next to the birdbath. I haven’t seen any birds eating from them yet, but that might be because the birds and I have very different schedule with me going to bed when they start twittering in the morning. One type of creature that seems to have the same warped body clock as me are the resident squirrels – or maybe they just eat 24/7 – in any case, they have discovered the fat balls.

They have also discovered the ingenious birdfeeder I have got for my window in the hope that I can get some really nice photos from inside my kitchen of feeding birds. The squirrel that tried entering the bowl yesterday didn’t quite manage to stand on the plastic window sill and fell down! He will no doubt be back. I am amazed that little canopy is holding the food dry, even through the rain and wind we have had lately. A very good, cheap little gadget – now the birds just need to discover the feed. Hopefully the squirrels won’t scare them away.

I have been shopping plants again – even though I wasn’t supposed to – but, but, BUT it was half price!! These 3 tiny camellias will flower from October to April, when one finish the other takes over – they are from left Camellia x 'Winter's Snowman', Camellia japonica 'Amabel Lansdell' and Camellia x williamsii 'Julia Hamiter'. I know they are just tiny twigs still....

....but so was Takanini 2 years ago and look at it now! This spring it will get a new pot, and all the camellias will grow in pots and containers for now - for years I suspect, until I have managed to lower the pH in the soil to a level they will accept.

I have made another purchase for the garden, a blossom solar light and I absolutely love it. Unfortunately the sun level is a bit low at this time of year so I only get a couple of hours of light on the tree before it dies every evening, but once we get to February or so, it will be much better sun level and it will charge better.

But it looks really decorative when it’s completely dark – and on a distance it looks a bit like a Christmas tree.

The spring bulbs are racing ahead, I don’t think it will be long before these snowdrops are flowering.

I have made a garden movie this month too, although usually I look at the weather forecast and find a day to tidy up the garden a bit and then do my filming the day after. This time I just could not find a day to do any gardening at all the whole week, the weather has kept me indoors. And today I had to sit ready with my camera and just go out in an un-forecasted gap in the rain before all hell broke loose again. As I am writing this, the rain is hammering down again and the noise it is making on my windows is incredible. I have been outside twice to rescue some plant pots that were blowing across the patio, the cat watched me from the kitchen door – I could almost see him shaking his head and thinking ‘What are you doing, going out in that weather!’

Well, here is my garden this month, with dead and black dahlias, leaves everywhere and most of my plants still waiting to get planted. My November garden, warts and all. Oh, and one of the squirrels make an entry, he had been munching on the fat balls first but I was too late with my camera to catch that bit! As always, my videos are best in full screen, HD.

The music this time was from Star Wars, Attack of the Clone.
I have been in my new house and garden for just over 6 months now, I thought it would nice to go down memory lane a bit and show the November movie from last year – from my old garden. It seems such a long time ago now! And the weather seemed nicer last year too :-)

To all of you that I didn’t manage to visit after last post, I am so sorry, I just haven’t had time – I will try my best to get round to everybody this time :-)
That was it for today, I am linking today’s post to Helen at The Patient Gardener’s Weblog.

Until next time, take care.