November Blooms: Stray Apologies

Chloris of  The Blooming Garden hosts a monthly meme encouraging us to share our top ten blooms each month, and she posted hers yesterday. I deliberately haven’t peeked at her November treasures yet, so I could roam my own garden without any preconceived ideas of what I might find. As it turns out I have found very little, most of which are stray apologies for past glories, but there are some seasonal pretties and winter promises amongst them. In recent years, she and I have both been introducing plants for winter interest, confident in the knowledge that there will always be plants flowering in our gardens; for now, however, it is more likely to be late autumn colour gracing our November posts.

I know she too will be featuring nerines this month, and although I am a mere nerine novice I have four varieties in flower, sadly no more than one or two out in each pot of five bulbs, but it’s a start! Above, clockwise from bottom left are the more usual Nerine bowdenii, then N bowdenii ‘Mr John’, ‘Alba’ and ‘Isabel’; all have been flowering for a number of weeks. The nerines are in the Coop, as is the striking fantasy Chrysanthemum ‘Salhouse Joy’ which featured in last week’s IAVOM, and Pelargonium ‘Lavender Lindy’, one of many scented varieties I have there. I shall shortly defoliate all the pelargoniums and cut them back, as recommended by specialists Fibrex Nurseries.

Behind the Coop in the partially shady border is Skimmia  confusa ‘Kew Green’, added early this year along with ‘Kew White’ which, being female and having a male friend nearby, should produce white berries in due course:

Also on the green and creamy white spectrum is the ubiquitous ivy, very much at home in the wilder and sometimes less wild parts of our garden, which at this time of year graces us with its sputnik like flowers, invaluable for late nectar seekers, followed by the green and blackish fruits. A close-up picture might have been better, but on a time poor day, this is all we have:

Amongst soggy rose buds and fading blooms of hardy chrysanthemums, there are some flashes of freshness, like the Bellis perennis beginning to provide colour in the many pots planted with tulips, and one of my two new autumn flowering snowdrops, this one Galanthus reginae-olgae ‘Cambridge’. Until now I have resisted any of these very early snowdrops as I felt there was nowhere they would be noticed amongst residual foliage; the new Fig Border, however, largely shrub filled, now provides an appropriate home for the newcomers which no doubt will be joined by a few more seasonal snowdrops in due course as my collection expands, which it undoubtedly will within the next few months.

That may well be my 10 for this month but I shall just throw in the promise of blooms to come, from one of my witch hazels, in this case Hamamelis ‘Rochester’, my newest one, which had just finished flowering when it arrived early this year so I am especially looking forward to a timely display in due course. In the meantime, do visit Chloris’ blog to see her and others’ November blooms.