1 EAGLETON NOTES: The November Garden

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Tuesday 5 November 2019

The November Garden

This year has been one of the strangest in my garden. The early warm spell in April fooled everything and then the constant rain thereafter cause everything to grow more than I've ever known. The exceptionally wet late summer and autumn combined with all my commitments has meant that virtually no maintenance has been carried out. I am hoping for some clear, dry winter days without the debilitating winds to get the garden ready for next year.

In the meantime I've just had a look at what is left in the garden:

A lone and lonely stray marigold, a tiny sisyrinchium among some miniature hebes, a lone remaining Japanese anemone, and one of a hundred little wild strawberries which I have allowed to colonise the garden because they flower from spring until winter.


25 comments:

  1. It is nice to still have some colour in the garden. Mine is pretty much a disaster area for similar reasons as well as being ill all summer...and now I'm generally feeling so much better, it is just too wet and miserable to go out in it.

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    1. Yes, Serenata, the miserable weather continues here too. This morning the wind has finally gone but the rain is still here. At least I can put on my waterproofs and still go for my morning walk in the woods.

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  2. I didn't know that wild strawberries could have pink (as opposed to white) flowers. Very pretty.

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    1. I'd quite forgotten, Helen, that wild strawberries, are often white. I started with a single plant years ago which arrived from I know not where and now they are everywhere.

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  3. Is it pretty mild there right now Graham? I guess hebes would do well there with the temperatures.

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    1. Amy, hebes do exceptionally well here. I have at least four varieties in my garden.

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  4. I haven't even thought of gardening for a month.

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    1. Red, I think about it a lot....I just don't do it.

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  5. The heat and dryness here scuppered much of my veg' growing this year. This is the third year running we've had almost no Tomatoes. My fingers are crossed for 2020.

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    1. Cro, apart from potatoes (someone gave me King Edward seed potatoes), I grew no vegetables this year. Good luck for next year.

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  6. Marigolds are so pretty, aren't they! I am amazed at the wild strawberries still in flower, also the anemone. This kind of flower is visible here only in spring time, then it gets too hot for them, I suppose.

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    1. Meike, my Dad always grew marigolds but I grow very few annuals and this one is an accident left over from some I planted years ago. Their seeds obviously got into the soil and a few come up every year. I leave them to re-seed.

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  7. I've never seen strawberries with pink flowers either (only white). I just tucked my balcony box of four strawberry plants in for the winter yesterday... (they spend the winters wrapped in fibercloth, under a bench in turn covered with a tarpaulin)... Just in time, perhaps! (outdoors temperature below zero this morning)

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    1. Monica, the temperature here is hovering just above zero this clear and windless morning but the strawberries still seem as happy as Larry.

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  8. It has been a good year here. Barley yield about 20% up but prices rubbish, dressed malting barley under £120.00p/ tonne after deductions last year yield poor but prices at £175/tonne. I blame Trump. Can't spray or plough before winter as the ground is too wet. Going to be busy next spring. Not that I'm allowed to plough, I'm a special needs ploughperson.

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    1. Adrian, I miss you on your blog.

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    2. Adrian, I suppose the old laws of supply and demand do have a certain part to play in the price of barley. The more scarce the product the higher the price all other things being equal.

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  9. Wild strawberries are so underestimated. But like all wild plants, they'll only grow where they want to. To my regret they won't grow here.

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    1. Jenny, mine grow everywhere and could almost be classed as a weed but for the fact that I allow them to spread (almost) everywhere.

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  10. And here we're hoping...desperately hoping for rain...in so many areas. Out of control bushfires are raging throughout many areas...it's frightening.

    The sky is clouded, not in clouds, but in smoke from fires in areas south and west of this plateau upon which I dwell. The smell of smoke in the air is not a comforting aroma.

    Our poor farmers, somehow, are clinging on through relentless, unforgiving drought conditions. I don't know how they do it....mentally, or physically.

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    1. Lee, I was watching the fire situation on television this morning. Scary and disastrous don't even begin to describe what it must be like.

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  11. May I counsel a small warning in respect of the wild strawberries? A few years ago I did the same as you - now I have a rampant weed which I have to pull up by the bucketload! 😃

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    1. I accept the warning Jayne. Thank you. Because they spread by overground runners I've so far managed to control them. However when I planted some Alchemilla mollus the seeds ran riot and years later I'm still getting the odd half dozen coming up each year in the weirdest of places.

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