Tulips. (From Hanley Swan).

I am, sadly, old enough to remember Max Bygraves singing the cheerful song ‘Tulips from Amsterdam’.

Tulips along with Dahlias are a vital element to providing year round cheer and colour here in Our Garden@19

The dahlias are all now lifted and safely stored in the small greenhouse, this one is kept frost free. There are two electric tube heaters in here, with a new heated propagating sand bench, at the rear, containing some seedlings which I am hoping to carry through the winter. These have been joined by the Aeoniums, Cotyledon Orbiculata, Colocasia ‘Black Dragon’ and Pelargoniums.

The dahlias on the bench are labeled and waiting for the ‘head gardener’ to box them up in compost similar to the ones you can see on the shelf below.

The raised beds that edge the patio have been home, during the summer, to the dahlias and annuals, it is my nod to the Exotic Garden at Great Dixter. I wrote about the dahlias I grow here.

Tulip ‘Abu Hassan’, now follows into the raised beds along with a few Erysimum x allionii (Siberian Wallflowers) and Myosotis (For-get-me-nots.) Hopefully these will be putting on a show for the early May Bank holiday open gardens.

The pots contain more tulips to dot around the garden in the spring, they are wintered on the patio to help keep the squirrels away.

The Tulips carried over from last year are Tulip clusiana ‘Peppermintstick’, Tulip ‘Calgary’ ,Tulip ‘Orange Emperor’, Tulip ‘Prinses Irene’, Tulip ‘Red Riding Hood’, Tulip ‘Spring Green’, Tulip ‘Tres Chic’ Tulip ‘Queen of the Night’ and Tulip ‘China Pink’. These were lifted or emptied from their pots after flowering and laid out to dry in the small green house rotating with the dahlias.

Tulipa ‘ Ballade ‘ is left in the main borders.

These bulbs are new for 2017, adding to the ones already in the garden.
Allium ‘Beau Regard’, Allium Karatavience ‘Ivory Queen’, Iris reticulata ‘Polar Ice’,
Muscari ‘Siberian Tiger’, Scilla siberica, Narcissus ‘Thalia’ and Tulip ‘Angelique’.

Some tulip pictures to show what we are hoping for.

Tres Chic

China Pink

Abu Hassan.

Orange Emperor.

Princess Irene.

Peppermintstick.

Spring Green

Queen of the Night

Have you planted any bulbs for a spring spectacular?

Ten Top for November.

I am joining Chloris and her many followers in posting my Top Ten for November, please visit The Blooming Garden to see what their Top Ten are.

Number one, the seed heads of the Lunaria, which provides a silvery shine in the low November sunlight. This plant provides interest through out the whole year, from the young leaves with their maroon spots, the dark purple flowers and now the seed heads.

…growing in front is a young Cotinus, we lost a mature one a few years ago, therefore we are looking forward to this one developing and flowering in the future.

These two ‘Grasses’ make a striking feature at the end of the pebble river in the Oriental Garden. I originally saw this plant combination when visiting The Bressingham Gardens, Nr Diss, Norfolk.

Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’, hakone grass and Opheapogon Nigrescens, black mondo grass.

This Viburnum, in the White and Green Garden, is one of the earliest flowering shrubs in the garden. It flowers from early autumn through to late spring, and looks particularly good when there is a blue sky behind it.

Anna from the The Greentapestry was recently singing the praises of this rose, mentioning that it flowers from July to November.

Here it is in the Iris bed on the south side of the house…

…along with ‘ ‘Geoff Hamilton’, I am hoping this bud will open.

I will always have Viola’s in the garden, whether it’s the diminutive ‘Heartsease’ which I grow from seed, (it does also self seed), or ones purchased from garden centres to provide colour through out winter.

We were given two Clivia three years ago, one flowered the first year, none the next year and one, (yippie!) so far this year.

I am not sure if Number ten qualifies for a November favourite, although it is one of mine and it is in the garden. The first sighting, today, of the female Blackcap on the bird feeders. I always like to see the arrival of this aggressive little bird, she always arrives before the male and tries to defend the feeders from all comers. the down side is that it heralds the arrival of winter weather, ‘Up North’ which will eventually make its way here.

This is a picture from 2014, they are quite nervous and therefore difficult to photograph. You can see more ‘Birdie” pictures by clicking the Wildlife Category.

That is my Top Ten in Our Garden@ 19, for November, I wonder what will be around for December?

November Sunshine.

November unfairly receives a bad press, often refered to as dark, gloomy, foggy and dismal. This I think stems mainly from the days when coal fires were the norm, polluting the atmosphere. “Guns N Roses” even performed a song entitled ‘November Rain’, which I don’t mind listening to (They are an American Hard Rock Band!) although I cannot agree with the sentiment implied in the lyrics.

We have recently enjoyed some lovely sunny November days here at Our Garden@19. Here are some photographs to help brighten your day, wherever you are.

Personally I think November is THE best month of the year.

Brian

What is your favourite month?

November Shadows.

I took these pictures with my iPhone, on a beautiful sunny November afternoon, while raking up the leaves in the garden, intending to publish them with this title on Wordless Wednesday.

Events here during the night of Friday 11th overtook every thing else, nine garden sheds and out buildings in our cul-de-sac were burgled. They entered the gardens from the field behind, by cutting the wire fence that runs along the rear of the gardens. Bolt cutters were obviously used to cut off the padlocks where they were in place, stealing small hand powered tools, petrol leaf vacuums, chain saws ect. They actually removed a fencing panel furthest from the house, between us and our neighbour, to enter our garden. Nobody heard a thing, not even our dog.

The last few days we have been repairing the damage and attempting to increase the level of security, by fitting alarms, security lighting and what we hope are bolt cutter resistant locks.

The police advised us not to keep any new replacement tools in the sheds as this type of criminal often wait about a month, to give you time to purchase replacements, before revisiting. We believe they must have ‘cased’ the area in daylight to know the layout so well, the police told us that they use either drones or google maps to assess the position and number of targets.

I decided to post this purely as a warning to those of you who have valuable power tools in out buildings to take advice about security to help prevent this happening to you.

There are times when you feel very disillusioned about human nature. I realise in the scale of events going on around the world, this is very small beer, however you do feel as though your space has been violated.

Ending on a more upbeat note, the Copper Beech and the Silver Birch in next doors garden along with our Wisteria are adding a colourful tone to November, helping to prove that it is not all dark shadows.