A monster for Halloween

I suppose it is rather fitting to have a monster plant presented on a day like today - in a bright orange colour, my monster will be known to a lot of people as something they initially put in their garden as a nice, small plant they picked up at a nursery - and then forever regretting doing that.

Blogging can lead to....

I started blogging almost 3 years ago and went ahead really on a whim, as a progression from writing on my website about my garden and presenting things I make on my computer. In the beginning I didn’t have any response at all, no comments from anyone, for almost a whole year. I could see that I had visitors from my statistics, but didn’t know if people stayed and read or just skipped past to next blog. I joined Blotanical in December 2011 and that’s when my visitor statistics started picking up and comments began to appear.

October in London

October is a funny month here in London, it goes from one extreme to another. We had 10 days of nice, warm weather well into 20 degrees C during the day and even if the evenings are colder and it gets darker sooner, it still felt like summer and often nicer than many days we had in August. And suddenly it all changed, the temperature fell to barely above 10 degrees and that bone chilling wind you get here in London set in and we skipped from summer to feeling like winter in just a few days. It is Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day today, and it might be autumn, cold and windy and you might think that there can’t possibly be much to see in flower in a garden in London, but as usual I have lots to show you.

Out with the old, in with…

I used to have an enormous Acanthus spinosus in the middle of my garden, in the left flower bed, just in front of the large camellia. If you don’t know this plant it is one of those you either say ‘ugh’ when you see or you smile and find interesting at first sight. I suppose I belonged to the last group, I really love anything unusual, and it doesn’t come more unusual than Acanthus spinosus!

Edible passion?

Down at the bottom of my garden the passionflower is still romping away up the dead tree stump as if it was participating in a competition in growing the most per week. I have started to snip away some of the longest shoots because I am afraid they will simply just hop over to other plants in my garden. I never anticipated the passionflower being this successful – certainly not in year two, what will it look like next year?!

Plant swapping Sunday

Can you remember I have written about the Green Plant Swap website before? It is a UK website where you can make your own page and list the spare plants you have for swap or sale and then arrange to meet other gardeners in your local area to exchange plants. Last Sunday I had my first plant swap! I signed up in April and put just a few plants for swap/sale, just as a tester, but have quite a few photos of my garden and I have written a lot of info about my garden too.

September beauties in my garden

It has rained in London the last week, a lot of rain, I haven’t really been out in my garden much at all. Between my hospital appointments and all the other things I have had on my calendar the last week I have just not been able to find many breaks in the rain to get outside. The last two days I have tried to take some photos for this post and it’s been almost a cat and mouse game with the weather – every time I think it’s safe to go out and take some photos it starts to rain again. Yesterday I just gave in and took some of the photos in pouring rain. I guess I am a bit of a sight out there, one crutch in one hand, the camera in the other hand and an umbrella carefully balanced on my shoulder. I am more afraid of my camera getting wet than me of course, and I was better at doing this balancing act when I had a point and shoot camera. Now I have a DSLR camera and it is a lot more difficult to take pictures with just one hand plus an umbrella. Oh well, the rain is good for my garden, it really needed it so I am not complaining, we should really have another week of it I suppose.

Let the sunshine in

It is still summer in London, Thursday the thermometer in my garden showed 30 degrees Celsius (86F) in the afternoon and although yesterday was a much cooler day with some rain, my garden really needed those showers and I was happy for the few free drops of water from above.