Wasn’t the recent rain fantastic, while hand watering keeps plants alive rain changes the whole picture, it was lovely the way so many perked up overnight.
The nursery and garden have been filled with flowers, alas plants in the nursery grow best when the flower buds are trimmed off and they can concentrate more on growing a bigger stronger plant, however I’m just a weak willed woman and can seldom do this.
For the past month the Aquilegias have been delighting me, many flowering for the first time some from seed a friend brought back from Canada others from seed from the Netherlands and the UK. At last I have lots of the beautiful clematiflora ones both double and single forms. Granny’s Bonnets we have those too, from the tiny A.discolor, an alpine one which has the deepest blue and white flowers on little 5cm stems to the lovely big clumping ones in shades of dark moody wine red, deepest purple and some heavenly blues. Seed saving is about to begin in earnest so I can offer them to you next year, though we still have some left for sale at the moment.
The Anthemis are starting to flower, something they will continue to do for most of the summer, one of the first to bloom is A.“Sauce Hollandaise” it has soft creamy white daisies and lacy silver leaves. I find it copes well with lots of sun and dry conditions, it just needs an odd trim to keep it neat. The beautiful glowing yellow Anthemis “Gralagh Gold” is also now available after a long absence. They look lovely on the garden edge spilling over onto a path.
Geraniums, one of my favourite plants are now taking up heaps of nursery space as the herbaceous ones finally raise their heads, they really do have quite a long winter slumber. Many of these are of course your favourites, as they are slower to propagate I often only have a few available each year. Most are the beautiful blue ones such as “Johnsons Blue”, “Blue Cloud” Himalayense “Baby Blue”, “Mrs Kendal Clark”, “Brookside” etc. Evergreen ones are proliferating at a great pace now, I find most of these cope better in sunnier spots than the herbaceous ones, though so much depends on where you live.
To me November is the month spring turns to summer, a time when the initial enthusiasm to grow and race to flower wanes a little, the Nicotiana, foxgloves, iris and campanulas are starting to look a bit tired, but this is Nowra, only 15km from the sea, frost free and humid, your climate may be very different. A beautiful huge multi stemmed Hollyhock in deep red is still in full display and the wonderful steel blue Eryngiums are just starting to flower which brings some consolation.
November is the month we have our annual open garden and plant sale, you are welcome to visit and wander in my wild garden, enjoy it’s range of plant species and cultivars, some rare, some common, weeds too as I never seem to have time to eliminate them all. I console myself with the thought that weeds while sometimes unsightly seldom kill plants, something we are far more guilty of.
So come and bring your tolerance and understanding with you, just don’t expect an ordered show garden and nursery. Writing this reminds me of a visitor who enthusiastically announced that after seeing my garden she felt so much better about her own! I was happy to oblige.
I look forward to seeing you here and sharing my favourite topic of conversation PLANTS with you.
Yellow House Open Garden and Plant Sale
Saturday 24th and Sunday the 25th of November
9am to 4pm
20 Jervis Street, Nowra
Enquiries 02 4421 8681 or 0417 433 357
Happy gardening
Mim