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.

My garden has taken on the jungle feel it always does at the end of the summer, all the plants have grown tall, fill the beds completely and spill out on the path here and there. You can’t see to the bottom of the garden from the seating area and the end of winding path is blocked by all the plants. It looks like a completely different garden to what I have in the winter and early spring.

The Dregea sinensis on the arch has grown to monster size again, even though I pruned it almost completely last February. It is still flowering, but only on the roof so I can’t really get to the flowers and take pictures anymore. Another monster in the garden are the sunflowers next to it. I wrote a post about THE SUNFLOWERS earlier this month and wrote that I was unsure of which type they were as they were much taller than described on the seed packet. I have got a reply from Sara Raven customer service where I bought them from and they confirm that this is ‘Vanilla Ice’ and that they probably have got this tall because they have had to compete with the other things growing around them.

This is the first year I am growing sunflowers and I am absolutely delighted with the result, I will do it next year too.

‘Vanilla Ice’ is supposed to be 5’ (150 cm) tall, I have tried to show here how tall they actually are, this is a 2m folding rule and the sunflowers are almost 50cm taller. I struggle to deadhead them now!

The flowers are much more yellow than the pictures I have seen of ‘Vanilla Ice’, I am not sure why, but they look lovely anyway :-)

Here is another tall plant in my garden, the passionflower is still putting on growth and looks now like a dense tree. Under this canopy is a dead tree stump and I hope it won’t rot and fall down anytime soon as if it does, the passionflower won’t have anything to grow on! It is about 4 m tall and I do worry about pruning next year. Perhaps I have done something not so smart after all....

I must have had hundreds of flowers already and there are probably hundreds of buds still to open. Here in London, Passiflora caerulea can flower right into end of November if we don’t get any frost.

And I have fruit too, some orange already, most of them green.

Speaking of monster plants, here is another monster which I haven’t yet presented to my readers. It is a Clematis armandii 'Apple Blossom' and I bought it in December last year. It didn’t do much the first 6 months and didn’t flower this spring, but when it finally started making new shoots it certainly got going at rocket speed. The plant was about 50cm tall when I got it and I thought the trellis I put on the fence and wall would be enough for it, but as you can see it has already grown out of space. I am not sure where I should let it continue as I need to be able to reach to prune and tidy it so I can’t let it grow too high up. I hope it will be smothered in lovely, scented flowers next March/April!

Moving back to the sunflowers, they are almost hiding the pride and joy in my garden – my roses. The roses have finally started the second flush of flowers, very late as they normally do that in late June or July, but nothing has been normal in my garden this year so here we are in September, with the second flush. After this, the roses will go on flowering all the way until February next year when I cut them down, but they won’t flower as prolific as the first and second flush, only some flowers here and there. I think it is rather fun to have roses at Christmas in the garden, especially if we have frost or even snow.

‘Crimson cascade’ is one of my favourite roses, although it looks a bit sorry in the gloomy, wet weather.

The yellow ‘Freedom’ is also flowering en mass at the moment, mostly hiding in between the sunflowers.

At my seating area I have ‘Rob Roy’ a compact rose which only have a few flowers at the time.

And this is also one of my favourites, 'Wildeve' from David Austin. Looks rather drenched here but that’s what you get for taking photos in pouring rain!

And here is another David Austin, my lovely 'Scepter'd Isle'.

Next to my bench I have several large pots, one of them with my trusty old pot rose.

This pot rose flowers continuously and is one of my best performers. Not bad for a £1 investment from Tesco years ago!

Next to the rose is another incredible performer, I bought this Dicentra  formosa 'Bacchanal'  last year and it is still flowering! It has not been without flowers since May, and I keep checking it now and then, can’t really believe it just goes on and on. My two Dicentra spectabilis at the bottom of my garden gave up flowering around end of July, but this one have more buds to come. Maybe formosa flowers for longer than spectabilis, not sure as I haven’t had this one before but I hope it will do this every year!

The third pot here is my very old ballerina, Fuchsia 'Bella Rosella', it hasn’t liked all the rain, but at least the cooler weather and the rain has got rid of the spider mites it had earlier in the summer.

And here are some of the other fuchsias, still going strong.

Among all the pink flowers in my garden I do have some other colours, the large pot in the middle is a newcomer to my garden, a Ceratostigma 'Forest Blue'. I got it as a present, not sure if I would have chosen this myself, but I will sure give it a chance.

It has very spiny flower buds and it is difficult to see the difference between spent flowers and new buds. The flowers come in clusters and don’t fade at the same time so there is always half dead flowers among the healthy ones. I’m not sure what I am supposed to do with the clusters once they are finished flowering but so far I have just cut off the whole cluster. I hope that’s the right way.

Ceratostigma 'Forest Blue'. It’s nice with some blue colours in the garden, I don’t have many proper blue flowers.

Up on the new shelf at my seating area I have some lovely Geranium 'Pink Chiffon'. I have 10 of these in the window baskets in the front garden too and I have been so pleased with them, they flower for such a long time. Unfortunately they really don’t like rain, the flowers are as thin as tissue paper and when they get wet they look rather sorry. But with the summer we have had they have truly liked to be on this shelf, baking in the sun.

Geranium 'Pink Chiffon'. I think I will get these next year too, or perhaps I might try make some cuttings for next year if I am not too late.

My dahlias are still going strong, after a setback from the spider mite attack in June and July. These at the front are 'Mary Eveline' and they have done best, as they were the latest to emerge and got only minor damage. Dahlia 'Striped Vulcan' and Dahlia 'Sunshine' are at the far end and they were destroyed by the spider mites, I had to cut them down completely. They are now all back up and in bud, hopefully they will flower again before it is too late!

'Mary Eveline' has saved the dahlia bed for me.

The container with Physalis Franchettii, Chinese Lanterns is so full you can hardly see the container. I think I need to divide this plant next spring. The lanterns have now started to turn orange.

And here is a photo of my lovely hydrangea. I know many people cut off the flowers when they start to go off, but I think they still look nice at this stage and I leave them on through the winter. I think they look as they are made of porcelain.

Every month I have had pictures of flowering Primula vulgaris, and I have it this month too, as they are still in flower, can you believe it? I have 25 Primula vulgaris dotted around the garden and they have all flowered from December last year without a break. At this time of year they should just about start again, after their summer break, and go on until next spring – I hope mine are going to continue.

I also have a red primrose, it started flowering a few weeks ago – and this one had a summer break. Sorry about not deadheading before taking the photo, it was raining too much!

And this cute Primula acaulis ‘Zebra Blue’ has started flowering again too, yes, autumn is definitely here.

That was what I managed to get photos of this time, I also have two clematises still in flower but they are very difficult to take photos of by now as most of the branches with flowers on are growing entangled in my camellia next to it.

My garden has plants in flower every month of the year, no matter how hot or cold it is. What do you have in your garden right now? It is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day today, head over to Carol at May Dreams Gardens and see what is in flower around the world at this mid September.

Until next time, take care.