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| Big Nose Dog ready for trick-or-treaters. |
Oh my goodness me, it's nearly Halloween! A day everyone in this house looks forward to, including the dogs. A garden wouldn't be my garden if there weren't a pumpkin patch in it, but since moving to the UK, the results haven't always been what I'm used to.
Which brings me to my first of the six. The pumpkin.
1. This variety was billed as prolific, with fruit the size of footballs. I'm nothing if not gullible & got several plants. One lone, tennis-ball-sized midget is the year's full crop.
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| My jack-o-lanterns will be courtesy Asda this year. |
After only 18 years, I need to admit defeat & research growing pumpkins here.
2. Here's something tiny that I'm not going to complain about. With the various critturs that run through the garden, it's a gift, finding one of these fellas intact.
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| Fancy little parasol. |
3. The last of the small guys, the bugle weed always meets black tie standards.
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| Creeping across the pavement, headed toward the lawn. |
4. Now for the big guys. I got chard seed as a stocking stuffer last year, not something I knew much about.
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| Beautiful foliage. |
It grew like wildfire, so we gamely looked up recipes, cooked our hearts out & came to the conclusion we aren't chard eaters. The neighbours were grateful, however, and I love how it looks, so'll probably plant it again next year.
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| Stunning colours. |
5. The other large finalist is a thistle that self seeded in the border. Enticing to gold finches, I tell anyone who looks askance at it, but secretly, I simply love a good thistle.
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| Love the flowers. |
My phone camera doesn't do the colour justice, the darks & lights in one bloom. This one's a beaut (although the fuschia behind it might disagree).
6. The last selection will be one of several Unknowns in the garden, most inherited, though some self seeded. These lovely, delicate things grow in any pavement crack they can find, have bloomed most of the year and even now, valiantly resist the cold. Any idea what it could be?
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| Tubular yellow blooms, leaves similar to a bleeding heart. |
Hope you enjoyed visiting the garden. Our Artistic Director & I look forward to next week's Six On Saturday.
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| Mizzy Bunny Butt, aka our Artistic Director. |
Check out all the other Six On Saturday contributors at
The Propagator's site.
The chard colours really are stunning! Is your mystery plant perhaps Corydalis?
ReplyDeleteIt does look very much like the Google images of Corydalis - & the colours it comes in! I'm going to like getting to know this plant. Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteI hear you on the trying for pumpkins! Here is a story of my initial woes and final triumph (followed by more woes this year, but let's gloss over that)- hope it cheers you up!
ReplyDeletehttp://uttarakhandandi.blogspot.in/2016/09/chasing-pumpkins.html
I loved this story. And am glad to know I'm not the only one who's lost sleep over what's happening in my pumpkin patch. We'll have to compare notes next year!
ReplyDeleteLook on the bright side, it won't take long to carve that pumpkin and you won't have to eat pumpkin soup every meal for the next week. You might guess that pumpkin is to me what chard is to you! Maybe you can set up a chard for pumpkin swap with your neighbours. I don't think of bugle as a weed, perhaps because here it does not spread invasively; indeed it hardly spreads at all. I'll join the Corydalis team. Now here, that IS invasive and I find myself chopping around it every spring to contain it. I used to have several of different colours but reduced to a single yellow one because of the spreading habit.
ReplyDeleteDoes the corydalis spread via roots as well as seed? In my garden, it tends to grow in pavement nooks & crannies rather than the flower beds.
DeleteThe corydalis is the backbone of my borders, it blooms continuously in such a happy color. Most importantly, the deer don't eat it, and deer are the biggest problem a gardener faces in these parts!
ReplyDeleteI inherited these w/the garden but really love them for their longevity & beautiful foliage. Now that I know it comes in various colours, it may become my backbone too!
ReplyDelete