Trisha's Journal

This was meant to be ‘purple regal mist’ but I think they delivered the wrong plant – never mind – still very pretty if not purple!
Aha! The mystery of why this chrysanth is white instead of purple is solved! Human error, on my behalf, checked back through journal and discovered I also potted up some cuttings from bunch of flowers I had. Some of the chrysanths fell prey to the voracious slugs in summer and it must have been the purple ones, leaving these white ones instead. Maybe purple is more tasty!

New growth already forming clumps underneath old stems.

Dug up and stored tubers for winter after frost.

Dug up and stored tubers for winter after frost.

Gorgeous sunshine (but very cold) this morning and so I grabbed my woolie hat and thickest gardening gloves and set to, trying to tidy up the front garden. Cutting the passionflower vine right back revealed the winter jasmine just about to burst into flower.

Tidied up the clumps of summer flowering blue irises to find the new growth for the spring flowering white ones. Had to shovel up the piles of now wet and dank leaves that were beginning to turn into slippery mulsh on the drive and steps. (Never let your partner use your shovel for mixing cement – it now weighs double!)

Outside now it is raining and grey again. Picture of snow from the 23rd November and the chrysanth was picked a week ago.

How annoying is it when the days that are sunny – you’re busy elsewhere and the days when it rains endlessly are the ones where you are at home staring out at the garden thinking, I could be clearing, pruning, digging, planting that…I know, I know , serves me right for only being a fair-weather gardener!
I’m putting up some pics of flowers from this year with this entry to cheer me up!
Just remembered there are still blackberries in the freezer, off to make some tarts.

All suddenly it flurries round
Whipped in eddies from a ground
Now frozen hard with the leaves still lying-
I forgot to wrap the fig!
As snowflakes dress bare bough and twig
The snow dances in front of my eyes
Falling from a lumpen sky
Early forsythia coldly clings
Drops of yellow acid against the fence
Crysanths bow
Dahlias wither
Late fuchsias tremble in frosted skirts
Dangling from baskets left out far too late
Cat pawprints sprint out past the gate
Over a patio slickly turning into a skating rink
Silence greets this early bird
In the snowglobe garden

The picture was taken through a window so the quality is not so good but it did make me laugh!

Horrible murky weather seems to be the end of the season. The chrysanths and dahlias are beginning to struggle with the rain.
Lots of birds about, robin, tits, blackbirds, magpies (catch them hanging off the bird feeder – must get a picture if I can!), woodpeckers, wood pigeons and a tiny little wren.
Painting calls as gardening is no fun in this weather and I have been inspired by a walk on top of Stone Barrow..