garden withoutdoors

At this time of year I switch my focus from gardening outdoors to gardening indoors with my bulb forcing. Sometimes they overlap. I planted some allium Purple Sensation and muscari in this trough which the foxes promptly dug up. I've moved it to the front garden where the foxes don't come so much. Some muscari bulbs are also "forced" in small pots. I say forced but in my experience muscari will bloom when it's good and ready and not a day before whether one tries it inside or out.

I basically lost the month of September with an ear infection, then deafness and disorientation then tinnutis so haven't updated here so much. The amazing Japanese anemone still going strong, all on its own with little fuss since I moved here 16 years ago.

intermittent morning glory flowers keep appearing

late sea holly flowers along with the morning glory

those fantastic intense purple morning glory flowers

I have a lot of pots! I tend to need to put plants in pots: 1. to keep them away from the slugs 2. to make use of the sun on the patio 3. to have plants in the very shallow flowerbed along the front path which isn't deep enough for normal planting. It's the time of year to review the pots:

1. Pots with annuals that have finished.

an empty pot will be a magnet for forget-me-nots, verbascum and wild basil

2. Pots with perennials that I'll set aside until next year.

the knautia spent stems need to be cut back and guess I should feed them

3. New plants (both grown myself and bought) not planted out yet.

the slugs love the greater knapweed seedlings so still haven't planted it out yet

4. New plants (grown myself and bought) which I'm not sure where to put.

self-heal

moving the pots about reveals these slugs, the white things are their eggs, those of a sensitive disposition, look away now, I wrap them in a paper towel and cut them in half and the eggs get smashed

one of the intermittent shoo fly flowers today, they don't last long and there aren't that many of them but today when I went outside to take photos, there was one looking beautiful

a scabious that self-seeded, maybe small / columbaria scabious?

The yucca was here in the front garden when I moved in. The leaves are incredibly spiky so I guess it's good for security in front of the window but it's never been my favourite. In recent years, the hot summers seem to have brought on flowering (I don't recall it flowering in the first years I was here). This year the flowers are earlier and there are two rather than the usual one spike. When photographing them today I noticed bees which I hadn't realized were visiting it. Suddenly I like it a lot more!

close-up of that bee in the photo above

Purple loosestrife I bought at a garden centre as my pond was a bit depleted. Only 1 plant of something like this is required - it's amazing.  Looks like some veronica beccabunga is growing. I had it in the past but thought it was gone. It had spread so much I pulled the runners out and I seemed to have done it too much but it survived. On the right, just visible is a water avens I bought at the garden centre at the same time as the purple loosestrife. I look forward to flowers next spring. The pond is a preformed plastic one with a leak so some serious repair / replacement it required. Other plants that haven't survived are a yellow flag and cat tails but now I see the beccabunga I will look for shoots and maybe they're there since the overwhelming calla lily has been removed.

I didn't plant any chicory seeds this year but maybe this enormous "dandelion" is a chicory seedling? I'm not sure. Comparing to previous years' chicory seedlings, it doesn't have any upright growth but maybe it's early yet. It would be nice as I didn't even think about planting chicory seeds. I'm going to wait and see. If it's just a dandelion - the bees will have and early (or late) dandelion.

photobombed by a cat - as usual, this has self-seeded in a pot, possibly autumn hawkbit?? one of my naughty squirrel visitors has disturbed the pot, like the foxes, which can be so destructive, they are so cute and I put nuts out for them - and this is how they repay me by burying them in my pots!

In spite of savage weeding and spraying weedkiller my neighbour has not succeeded in totally obliterating the soapwort - thank goodness. Why he ripped everything out of that flower bed - but left a broom, a bucket and other rubbish, I don't understand. The cherry laurel stump is also growing and will be out of control in no time. I pruned it earlier this year but despite him banishing me from the garden, he is not pruning it himself. 

close-up view or the closest my camera can get anyway

another flush of greater knapweed flowers

the Chinese lanterns are turning orange (the greater knapweed is just to the left of the front path just out of shot)

the flowers are so unnoticeable (green lantern underneath which will turn orange in coming weeks)

I have the final few plants I grew from seed. Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica, obviously aren't going to bloom this year. I finally planted them in larger pots.

the slugs had been eating them before so not sure how they'll do in the pots (3 round, 1 square), in the pots I can put them more in the sun when I've cleared some spent plants

These meadow clary (Salvia pratensis) are surprisingly small, also in smaller pots,

thought I'd try them all together in the this very large pot. I can always divide them next year. Anything in small the pots the foxes are playing with, taking next door, etc. so needed to get things planted, even if into pots rather than in the ground. In the ground I worry about slugs.

Rudbeckia Green Wizard which I bought a few years ago (previous attempts growing from seed were unsuccessful but maybe because of my aggressive slugs), I hadn't planted it out but still the slugs got to it, I moved it off the ground / out of the way and it grew back but the slugs got to it again, the cycle was repeated a few times. At some point I managed to put it on some shelves away from the slugs and it grew back the last time and I planted it in this larger pot. I still can't put it in the ground and not sure where to put the pot long term but it is now on some tall shelves. Can it bloom in a pot? I don't know but I'll see next year I guess.

This is my last delphinium small plant (of 4 ) that I grew from seed earlier this year, the slugs got the others; also in the pot is my last melancholy thistle. The slugs loved them! This pot is also on the tall shelves. I have another packet of melancholy thistle seeds to try again.

I came back from holiday (on Hayling Island - lots of plants seen, will post photos in coming days) and see the rain had encouraged some new flowers.

the chicory has a new flush of flowers - which a bee is enjoying

the bought sea holly plants on the right, mostly brown but a few newer flowers, my seed-sown sea holly on the left, mostly green still but ones in front of the ladder turning blue and some fresh nepeta faassenii flowers and ox-eye daisy

some completely new echium Blue Bedder plants - in bloom

a new knautia macedonica

and snapdragon

before I went away, the globe thistles were in full bloom and attracting bees

I guess the bees eventually go to the veronica longifolia but it's not their first choice but I love the purple flowers

before I went away I had a new water lily in bloom

I grew these hyssop from seed last year, finally in bloom this year - but white instead of purple flowers I was expecting

speaking of bees, I had them on the musk mallow

the scabiosa Perfection Blue

lesser knapweed

and looking back I see bumblebees were on the globe thistles end of July

first flowers of the marsh mallow I grew some seed