Autumn continues with no sign of Winter’s approach. Some seasonal chilly nights in April have morphed into several more balmy weeks, with hardly a drop of wind or rain. The “Anything Garden” is still proudly displaying its Summer glory, with the addition of the Camellia hedge at the back flowering at the same time. I’ve never experienced an Autumn quite like it! The colour on the deciduous trees and shrubs is absolutely astounding due to the dry summer, but the leaf drop is also outstanding in its own way, ie so voluminous due to the outstanding warm, wet spring we had, which sent all the trees into a growing frenzy. With no wind, the piles of oak leaves from the 2 enormous oaks close to the house, lie in piles where they dropped, instead of being chased to the perimeters of the garden.
Meanwhile the roses are finally producing lots of lovely autumn blooms (where they haven’t been ravished by the ever present possum population). Better late than never, as the old adage goes. The autumn flush has certainly been a disjointed, strung out affair this season, but it does mean its lasted longer than usual…
This red Hybrid Tea is one of my “mystery roses”…another I grew from a cutting but have no idea where the cutting came from… It’s been putting on a magnificent autumn flush this year, along with th
e Teas which are getting ready to boogy all winter as they do.
We had an open day in the nursery and garden in late April,
it was very well attended and many cars left loaded with our value perennials and roses.
We have decided to have 1 more before winter sets in, which will be on Sunday May 26th. We will continue to post plants through the winter, but feel its not the best season for enjoying the gardens, so the May day will be the last before we start monthly ones again in September.
We have new perennials and roses being potted up every day, so there should be interesting things to peruse even if you came last month. Also, we will be putting lots of “past their use date” perennials on the half price table, so serious bargains to be had.
In the meantime the post summer clean up continues in the garden, trailer loads of weeds and cut back perennials being towed off almost daily, and as we trim the roses, any worthy cutting wood is put in pots in the hope of new roses for next season. I never give up on the stubborn ones…patience and perseverance always pays off, so I keep on putting in pots full until I finally coax one to grow roots… Once a plant is growing on its own roots the likelihood of its cuttings taking seems to go up exponentially, not to mention the fact that the chances of losing the bush exponentially goes down, so getting cuttings to grow from rare grafted plants is my main aim in life !!