In the pre sunrise up on Lansdown just north of Bath, the snow grey light gave an eerie start to the day on Friday. Freezing Hill is one of the points on the route, aptly named. In the evening a little band of snow moved through, but now all gone.
The garden is soggy and rotting leafy. I took some pre-emptive cuttings from Fuschia decipiens (earlier cuttings were hit by frost in the greenhouse) and Dichroa febrifuga, these are now tucked in a heated propagator on a windowsill.
Orchids have been very cheap in many shops and nurseries this autumn, I won’t be able to keep most going but for £5.00 they last longer than a bunch of flowers. Some of the Cambrias have scent, a reddish one smells of poo and one with fabulous starry white flowers strongly of ground pepper! Another recent purchase a Cymbidium, has a greeny citrus scent. Rocky Mountain nursery in Somerset also had some bargain Amaryllis and Skimmia.
There is still a chilli pepper hanging on in the unheated bit of the greenhouse, the intention was to ‘can’ the peppers and stuff them with soft cheese like those you can buy from deli counters. Having then looked into canning in olive oil, it would appear you have to know what you are doing as botulism is a real problem if not heated and sealed properly – ho hum.
I lost the hanging basket competition again this year! Frankly a bit messy and incoherent, the heliotropes died off early on.
The winning basket just had more overall flower power for longer.
Very impressed with the performance of Calibrachoa in the rival basket, like mini petunias but finer and seemingly pretty robust. They also did well in a dry terracotta planter alongside a dark red trailing geranium, lavender and a trailing rosemary.