Autumn is Here!

I can tell when autumn is here not only by the changing colours of the leaves, or the low hard sun in the sky but by looking round my garden

My Caster Oil Plant, I can still remember the first time it flowered, I believe two years ago on this blog, since then it has been dug up cut back and re-planted and this year yet again it shows me its different developments of its flower..









It always flowers at this time of year, and I love it because it is so different to anything else I have in the garden,

I was given a tuber of this flower Impatiens tinctoria (I believe)





yes there are other types of 'Bizzy Lizzie' lots and lots I have the book to prove it! This one is currently 1 metre tall and flowering away merrily, a sight for sore eyes at this time of year!!


My tree ferns have loved our awful summer and have grown amazingly well, I will stuff the crowns with fleece and leave them to there own devices this winter. This is the small one



and my bigger one has masses of fronds





A sure sign of colder days and nights is I can find the cats relatively easily

Jake's favourite position is half in and half out of the cat flap, I have yet to get a pic but I will



he comes and goes as he pleases now, but I lock them all in at night! Although he is timid he acts quite dominant on occasions, Sassy does not like him at all and avoids him at all costs, when they do meet everyone can hear it. Funnily enough neither Sassy or Tango have given him a swipe, Chimarnie my old cat would have, its all Jake needs, maybe its not in the nature of a Burmese?? Watching him round the house I understand how important a tail is to a cat, he is definitely not as agile.

Sassy likes to be as close to me as she can



sitting on the chair next to me when I'm on the computer. She is so sweet.

Tango is sneezing alot



and is not complaining to much about being shut in, which is unusually for him. I have checked for other symptoms of 'Cat flu' but he doesn't seem to have them, he is drinking and eating so maybe its just the sniffles.

In the autumn I come in from the garden and start to make and do in the home, I have been quite busy so have some nice things to share with you, but not right now. I am away for a few days visiting my mum so will be back next week.

Don't forget the hour changes this weekend!

Greenhouse Jungle!

First of all I had to jet wash the greenhouses this weekend as they are below 'Silver Birch' trees, this is what this one looked like before.........



and I only just remembered to take a pic of it washed after I had started to bubblewrap it!!!!



at the end of each year I label and roll up each piece and then store it in the shed until it is needed again



I then use the ladders and the fiddly little green things to attach it to the inside of the greenhouse. On the roof I use extenders, well thats what I call them, they hold the bubble wrap away from the glass by about an inch, I find this helps stop condensation, which is a killer for some of my banana/ensetes as they have to be kept more or less dry over winter!



here we are all done, with some of the plants back in. You can see the heaters are in place, I have 3 in this greenhouse two fan and one tube. In the small greenhouse I have one tube and one fan heater. All for the love of tropical plants!!



One of the Ensetes is lying down to drain out all the water, I will have to keep doing this untill the soil is dry, as any water stored in the stem is a killer, when it freezes, which hopefully it won't!



I showed you the other day the bananas I had to dig up, on the patio, first you have to cut off all the leaves....





which I think is sad as the leaves are beautiful, they didn't all go to waste as my neighbour is a primary school teacher and apparently their year 3 is studying the jungle so she took a couple of the leaves in for them to see and feel!



amazingly these plants only have very small root balls considering the size the plants get!



I have them sitting upside down



draining out some of the water, fortunately they are not too heavy!



this is one of the 'Xanthosoma' that also had to be dug up, great colour!



Greenhouse beginning to fill up now!



In the pots on the left are my Egg Yams, lopped off as I wouldn't have room for everything and there leaves!!!





Looks quite colourful in here now, I wonder where I'm going to put my brugmansias????????????