garden withoutdoors

I thought that was an excellent episode of Gardeners Question Time broadcast on November 22nd from Shrewsbury. Peter Gibbs was a great host and put everyone at ease with none of the animosity displayed by Eric Robson towards Bob Flowerdew (listeners notice such things!). Peter made such a nice relaxed atmosphere a number of comments got applause - more than I remember from any other episode. Well done GQT.

my mahonia is looking great at the moment

a huge artichoke that self-seeded itself

Here are some great self-seeders: another artichoke, another cerinthe and lots of borage. Note to self: tidy up the pots, etc in the background before taking a pic!

While I've been looking at borage today I decided to look at others' photos at google images. Three of the photos there on the first page of results show green alkanet and not borage - some from nurseries selling the plant! and using the wrong image to identify it. Obviously a plant that is often misidentified. See green alkanet at my weed guide.

Waiting for seeds to germinate can get so tedious and I've had so many discouraging failures, I was gratified that these lupin seeds which I collected from my few lupin plants germinated so quickly. Those white stick labels are the seeds I previously had in this tray, neither of which germinated at all, so I decided to just put the lupins on top.

I've had a number of cerinthe self-seeding this autumn. This one has grown to enormous proportions which I've never seen in cerinthe. I don't know why and I don't know what it will do in the spring - another "wait and see" plant.

Surprised to see certain flowers in bloom in the garden now in October, although the mahonia is not surprising as this is the time it does bloom and share that wonderful scent.

These small sunflowers have recently produced a new batch of flowers.

Japanese anemone

another auricula

The Borage has gone completely mad recently. I haven't seen this in over a year as it was a building site until recently.

The borage has self-seeded extensively.

This is the only sunflower in the front garden that bloomed and it's been rather late.

Below  is the first Pickerel Weed that bloomed this year. I would have thought it would have bloomed earlier in the summer but it didn't.

I still can't get over the auriculas blooming this time of the autumn. I thought they were early spring flowers. I haven't grown many before but I bought a dozen of them (which had already bloomed in the spring) for an auricula theatre next spring and 3 have bloomed so far this summer/autumn.

It's time for the iris foetidissima seed pods to split open.

This yucca is just producing a flower bud now. It seems like it should have earlier but I guess it needed to bake in the heat over the summer before it was ready.

Plant of the Century?

These are the first and only flowers I've had on this Geranium Rozanne this year - not a very good performer. I don't think I had any flowers last year. I am not impressed. I'm mystified why it would win any award at all.

I haven't grown mint before so the purple flowers took me by surprise.

This was one of my unknown weeds but it looks like a pelargonium that self-seeded. I didn't know they self-seeded but it must have. I don't have one in my garden at the moment but I did have a few about 3 years ago. It must have been dormant for a while.

The garden of the flat I stayed in on the south coast for the last week in August was covered with weeds. Of course I couldn't resist weeding it and I have a few pics of unidentified weeds.

This erigeron used to be covered with pink flowers. Now it's covered with brambles.

the thickest brambles I've ever seen

the erigeron after cutting the brambles

I'm not sure what this is, certainly a plant that self-seeds easily.

an unknown weed

another example of the same weed

another unknown weed

ribwort plantain (I've transferred this now to my weed guide)

The roots on these patio weeds can be incredibly long. It's how they survive

The pellitory of the wall clumps were the largest I've ever seeen.

I brought home some erigeron cuttings from a previous trip.

I planted hollyhock seeds I collected in these seed trays but I see lots of seedlings that are not hollyhocks. The hollyhocks are the large-leaved seedlings. I'll see what the others grow into.

The tray below seems to have less weeds, maybe as I used new compost which hasn't been in the garden receiving lots of weed seeds being blown in.

I have loads of green tomatoes but no sign of them turning red.

I've seen this before but when I noticed it on iplayer today I thought I'd watch it again. Provides some food for thought.  For example, stachys macrantha which isn't in my weed guide as I didn't know it was a "weed", but as it self-seeded I guess it makes sense:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01224kv/The_Wonder_of_Weeds/

The agastache anisata's flowers are continuing to grow taller. The unknown weed in that pot (on the right) still has not bloomed; so far looking like a willowherb. I'm finding it difficult to be patient waiting for it but I'm determined to figure out what it is once and for all. I'd have more weed flower pics in my weed guide if I wasn't was desperate to pull the weeds out and not give them a chance to flower and spread.

The cold, cold spring meant my sunflowers (and other seeds) got a very slow start. This is one of my few sunflowers in bloom.

Some very handmade terracotta pots  - so much more character than black plastic.

My first lupin is looking good and attracting bees (although I didn't manage to capture a pic of any)