Six on Saturday 26th November 2022

Hello! I haven’t blogged or SoS’ed for ages, due to a combination of truly atrocious weather, an overwhelming schedule and a hefty dose of general malaise. Friday (yesterday) brought a brief moment of respite, so I grabbed it with both hands and got a spot of gardening done (though I still managed to cop for multiple soakings from unforecast heavy showers, prompting some choice Anglo-Saxon language from me).

Anyway, I battled on through the rain regardless. So here are six photos, not all of them especially pretty, but then neither is the garden after so much rain! Don’t be fooled by the slanting autumn sunshine… the rain fell regardless.

Do hop on over to Jim’s page, Garden Ruminations, to see what he and the other SoSers are up to this week: http://gardenruminations.co.uk/2022/11/26/six-on-saturday-26-11-2022/. thanks as always to Jim for hosting!

I was trying to leave the monarda seedheads up for a bit of late interest, but the wind has caused them to topple over and the crown to lift, so I cut them down after taking this pic. You’ll note there’s an ugly – and overly-ambitious – clothesline prop in the background. The clean sheets got a soaking shortly after I took this photo and then they had to come down, too. You can just see some phlomis seedheads in the bottom right corner – I was hoping to have drifts of these for winter interest too, but they are most miffy about flowering for me. I think the soil might be too rich, encouraging leafy growth at the expense of flowers. Maybe they’ll be more obliging next year.

I assume it’s the damp conditions that cause the poppy seeds to germinate inside the seedheads like this.

The bulk of my gardening time was spent lifting, tying, labelling and washing dahlia tubers. Last year was the first year I bothered to lift any and I have to concede it made the world of difference to their performance. This lot are now all drying in the shed (inasmuch as anything can ever really dry in that damp place!) I have bought some sulphur to really do the job properly. I will dust these with it when it arrives, then they will all go in polystyrene boxes of barely damp compost in the shed. I should also be able to force some with a little bottom heat for an early start in the new year, and take cuttings from the new shoots, although where I’d fit any more dahlias into the borders may prove to be something of a problem… not that it’ll stop me.

Nobody has told the brugmansia it’s nearly December. It actually has new growth and flower buds on it. I have ordered a giant fleece bag for it, as the two huge ones I already have are now too small to contain this beast. I’ll be delighted if I can get just a bit of its great height through the winter. I’m hopeful – it actually seems much tougher than one might imagine. I’ve had it for about five years now, though the tallest stems on this one are not that old. I did manage to nurse this one through last winter, getting stems of about 3-4 foot to survive the winter, so I might manage to keep most of it again this year. It roots absurdly easily from cuttings so there are always smaller back up plants in the greenhouse, just in case.

This clematis has sulked for six years, and for the first time ever it has given me a beautiful display. I can’t remember what variety this one is, but I am, at last, very pleased with it.

This is not the same clematis, this is C. cirrhosa ‘Freckles’, I think, another reluctant flowerer that has finally obliged after several years, much to my delight. It’s turning into a bit of a thug, actually. We are soon to have new neighbours: I hope they like it, otherwise I’m in trouble here (and the same goes for the trachleospermum below it. But honestly, who doesn’t like trachleopspermum? If that person exists, they’re just plain wrong). The blue sky behind didn’t last very long but was very welcome while it did.

The Under-Gardener was most unimpressed by everything everywhere being damp, as it makes it impossible to supervise the Head Gardener from a comfortable prone position. He’s not very impressed with the gaps in my very uneven lavender hedge, either.