Autumn Bulbs,Corms and Tubers

 
                                                              Crimson Flag Lily

Albert Camus summed up this time of the gardening calendar with a quote.  “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”  There are so many beautiful colours about in the late sunshine. There are also plenty of delightful colours in the flowers that grace our beds and borders at this time of year.

Perennial plants continue to throw out lovely hues. Red-hot pokers are sending their toned reds and oranges into the air and tubular Penstemon are a delight to see waving in the wind. Large multi coloured annual dahlia flowers flop and hang in there as the threat of the firsts frost come upon us. You can see why dahlias are so popular for council planting as they have a really long flowering season. Asters are similar and can last even the mild ground frosts in the evenings.

It’s not only perennials that delight in autumn. There are a lot of bulbs coming up now that add to the myriad of colours. 

Bulbs, Corms and Tubers

Crocus

Crocuses are some of the best known of the autumn bulbs for the garden. These jewels of the autumn force their blooms through the fallen leaves to create a festival of colour, even before their foliage appears.

Dahlia

Slightly different from the annual types, these striking blooms of these tuberous plants start to open in summer, but are at their best from August to September, bridging gaps in borders as other perennials begin to fade.

Nerine

One of the hardiest autumn flowers.  A bold block of cerise pink nerine flowers make a breathtaking sight on a bright autumn morning. These South African plants are unscathed by cold weather and surprisingly easy to establish.

Crimson Flag Lily

The most common one around here is the 'Major'. This hardy and vigorous clump-forming perennial grows to 60cm in height, with grassy light green leaves and erect stems bearing lax spikes of up to 10 crimson-scarlet flowers 5-6cm in width, from late summer. They are similar to nerines in their growing habits and the fact their origins are from the South African plains.

Sternbergia

Similar to Crocus, Sternbergia make excellent bulbs for autumn colour at the end of the year. They love full sun.

Gladiolus

The tall, slender stems come into their own in early October. They will need a bit of TLC though and be dug up before the hard frosts so not everyone’s favourite.

Begonia

Tuberous Begonias are the most glamorous bulbs for adding a bright colour accent to shady patios. Their beautiful flowers are produced over an incredibly long period, from summer all the way through to the first frosts in November.

Cyclamen

Cyclamen are actually corms and are very useful for brightening up those dry shady areas beneath trees, where other plants struggle to grow and make excellent woodland autumn bulbs. Cyclamen hederifolium is the usual choice for autumn flowers .For later flowers the Cyclamen ‘coum’ is often used.  Braving the cold winter weather as early as January, the pretty pink blooms emerge ahead of the foliage which later forms a carpet of silver-marbled leaves., Cyclamen coum enjoys a damper soil than it’s cousin, thriving in moist shade beneath trees and associating beautifully with snowdrops.

Snowdrop

With so many different species and varieties to choose from, the snowdrop has gained almost fanatical popularity and galanthophiles pay enormous sums for a single bulb. But you don’t need to break the bank to enjoy these winter beauties. Try the Galanthus elwesii, the giant, honey-scented snowdrop or Galanthus nivalis ‘Flore Pleno’, the double flowered variety. For natural looking drifts, gently cast the bulbs across the planting area and plant them exactly where they land.               

Winter Aconite

These cheery winter aconite bulbs produce golden, cup-shaped flowers surrounded by a green collar of leaves - just like buttercups in the depths of winter! Not for the tidy gardener - Winter Aconites almost demand to be grown in bold natural drifts where they can be left undisturbed to die back naturally in spring. They love a moist soil and a shady position, so they’re perfect for under-planting among woodland trees

Signs of Summer Ending

 Old sweetcorn and powdery mildew courgette leaves

When you think about it there are hundreds, no, thousands of signs around telling us that the summer is ending. I am noticing that walking the dogs tends to be in the dark, there are more leaves on the ground and the ones left on the trees are turning quickly. There’s also a nippy breeze and I am wearing a hat for warmth instead of sun protection. Blackberries are there for for picking and the apples are ripe on the trees. Thankfully I haven’t seen any Christmas advertising yet but I’m sure that’ll be here soon. 

The back garden is where I am seeing most changes to the season. My courgettes are still trying to grow, they have new flowers coming on the stems but the plants have succumbed to powdery mildew due to the cooler, damp weather so I doubt any more courgettes will appear.

My tomatoes are staying green and their leaves are also going brown so I will be taking the fruit off and ripening them up next to a banana on the windowsill (I’m not making phallic images, the bananas are supposed to speed up the ripening process) All of the pea plants have gone and the bean plants are hanging in there but the runner beans are getting a bit blotchy with the cooler winds.

I have one lufa surviving in the tunnel. The earwigs have nibbled every other one. This is a bit too late though as mildew is getting to the leaves so the solitary back scratcher probably won’t grow any larger than a pencil before the season ends. I’m not sure if I will grow lufas next year as I can’t really think of a way to keep earwigs off the plants and I couldn’t be bothered with something really high maintenance that I would have to keep vigil every night.  I like the simple to grow, high yield vegetables and lufas are not in that category. Neither are sweetcorn. I harvested the last two today and although they look well they were really tough and inedible, even after liquidizing. Somehow the resulting goo had the ability to suck all of the moisture from your mouth and you were chewing it for hours. Not nice, I don’t think they will be on my wish list next year.

Preparing for winter

Apart from just watching annuals decay and roses just staying as buds and not opening in the garden, there are some things I could and should be preparing for. My first job will be to move the cacti indoors. I have repotted them so they will be happy for the winter as long as I keep the frost off them. I didn’t put most of them indoors last year and they survived as there wasn’t really a frost, I doubt I’d be that lucky this year. My other frost sensitive collection is air plants. Most of them have survived the summer in the tunnel but there have been a few casualties. Maybe it was too wet or not humid enough, you really can’t tell with these plants. 

They don’t wilt like rooted plants, they just dehydrate and die, or go mouldy overnight, or the leaves just drop off. The ones I have left are the survivors and won’t require much winter care. I’ll be sticking them to the bathroom tiles with rubber suction cups until spring, that should keep them happy every time we have a shower they will get some moisture so I won’t need to spray them with water very often, if at all.

There are outside jobs to do as well before things get darker and colder. If you have a barbeque that might need to come indoors before it rusts to bits. Frost sensitive posts will need to come in and if there are any hanging baskets left dangling outside the front door, these might need taking down and composting too. I’ve tried to delay the inevitable with baskets some years but they have a tendency to just give up at this time of year and look very bedraggled. 

As it’s getting wetter the paths will need clearing and cleaning. I have a lot of overwintereing broccoli and after lifting it up today I found a lot of slippery slime on the concrete path. In summer having to walk off the path and onto the lawn to get places isn’t an inconvenience but when the large leaves are wet and droopy you get wet brushing past them and the grass can be very slippery so it’s a priority to keep access clear. It might be a week or two until we need to be up the ladders clearing the guttering of leaves but it’s worth keeping an eye on the downpipes to see they are flowing well. We’ll be collecting leaf mould very soon.

It might be an idea to prepare the tools for winter as well although you might still need a few of them for planting evergreens and hedges. There is always something to do in the garden and if this winter is anything like the last one, I’ll be cutting my grass once a week until next summer.

Talk about the Weather

Being in a queue isn’t an issue for me anymore.

Having a smart phone with 4g means that I have access to all sorts of information (usually Facebook) and can keep myself not only occupied and entertained until it’s my turn to be served.

I will occasionally chat about the weather if someone brings the subject up. Usually it’s because of concern for the sales staff that has to endure a cold icy draft from the exit doors of the supermarket throughout their shift (why don’t shop designers put checkouts in warmer places? No need to answer that as I know really) 

Talk about the Weather

I do find myself coming out with a few old wives tales to other people in the line about the state of the weather, most of these ‘passed down the generations’ old sayings are pretty accurate and come from a time when looking up at the sky was the only way of seeing what nature was going to do next.

"In the morning mountains, in the afternoon fountains" I’ll chirp to the person behind me with a trolley load of food. I happen to know the meaning for this one, although I rarely have to explain as it’s usually greeted with a nod and a smile, although I’ll tell you. - The phrase comes from when clouds building through the morning are often followed by thunderstorms in the afternoon. If atmospheric conditions are just right, clouds will rapidly grow into towering cauliflower-like mountains. By the afternoon, the clouds will have reached the dizzy heights of the top of the atmosphere, resulting in rain and lightning below. Now you know and can pass on the phrase.

Dropping in

There are a few more I can quote too, which also make me sound like I have been dropped into the shop from medieval times to entertain shoppers. 

"If a circle forms 'round the moon, 'twill rain or snow soon" I’ll say smiling at a confused looking stranger.  This saying comes about because of a layer of ice crystals in the night sky that can create an optical phenomenon called a ‘lunar corona’ - a circle of colours surrounding the moon. Hence, the idea that a weather front is approaching and rain is on the way.

"When the wind is out of the east, tis neither good for man nor beast" I reply when someone comments on the wind coming through the supermarket door, again sounding like I should be in a period drama.

Rain before seven, fine by eleven, Cold night stars bright, are others which although come from a time before mobile internet and the meteorological office are still quite accurate although I wouldn’t hang my washing up just to be safe if it rains before seven as that one in particular can be quite unreliable

Red Sky

The saying is most reliable when weather systems predominantly come from the west as they do in Inishowen. "Red sky at night, shepherds delight" can often be proven true, since red sky at night means fair weather is generally headed towards us.

A red sky appears when dust and small particles are trapped in the atmosphere by high pressure. This scatters blue light and leaving only red light to give the sky its notable appearance.

A red sky at sunset means high pressure is moving in from the west so therefore the next day will usually be dry and pleasant. "Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning" means a red sky appears due to the high pressure weather system having already moved east so the good weather has passed, most likely making way for a wet and windy low pressure system. 

I have tried to explain this to people in the checkout queue but by the time I have finished they have pushed the trolley to the car, loaded up the boot and driven off, leaving me standing alone, mid-sentence in the car park. 

Still at least it’s not raining and even if it was it wouldn’t last long as "Three days rain will empty any sky" 

If I am in a really slow queue and have someone interested about old weather sayings I’ll drop out a lesser known one “Mackerel sky and mare's tails make tall ships carry low sails” I say with theatrical projection. 

 Like the person driving away in their car, they’ve usually lost interest by this time so I resort back to staring at my phone screen to check the weather.

200 Billion Daddy Long Legs and Would You Take Cuttings from a Garden Centre?

Apparently there are over 200 billion daddy long legs hatching out this week. Most of them seem to be trying to get through our kitchen window. 

 

These harmless wafting insects, sometimes called crane flies are a real boost to feeding wildlife as the summer ends. The warm, humid weather has been perfect for them to flourish. The young leatherjackets from where they emerge in the ground can cause a bit of damage to grass roots, but I’ve never really seen much damage being done.  I think the payoff is pretty small when you think how much nutrition they are giving to overwintering animals and birds and even me. I might have even eaten a few this year as well. We can think ourselves lucky these billions of flying insects are not the angry unemployed wasps or mosquitoes; we would be in trouble then.

Talking of things appearing in large quantities, I see the small plastic balls we get in cosmetics and bathroom products are being banned next year, called microbeads.

What are microbeads?

Commonly called ‘Microbeads’, these are tiny pieces of plastic that are added to everyday cosmetic products face wash, toothpaste, abrasive cleaners and lots more. They are most frequently made of polyethylene but can be of other petrochemical plastics such as polypropylene and polystyrene. Microbeads are usually smaller than 5 millimetres in size.

There can be over 100,000 of the small things going down the sink after just one wash. Trillions of these small plastic balls contribute to the 8 million tonnes of plastic that enters the sea every year.

 The plastic is so small it can get through the filtering systems and ends up being eaten by marine life and then back onto our dinner plates. I’m pretty sure that this started off as a waste product until someone had the bright idea to put it in cosmetics. The same principal as fluoride, it’s cheaper to put it in the water than dispose of it safely. 

What did we do before this plastic was added? I hear you say.

We’ll go back (hopefully) to natural alternatives.  Exfoliating the skin is big business and there’s no reason why you can’t add your own abrasives that are safe and cheap to buy or grow. 

For Light Exfoliation

For a more sensitive skin type, you are going to want something that is soft and rounded. Some good options are whole oats that are preferably finely ground up or straight baking soda which is naturally soft and fine. If your skin is oily, go with the oatmeal as it will also help to absorb excess oil in your skin. Honey and yogurt work but you might be tempted to eat it.

For Mild Exfoliation

You’ll want to look for an ingredient that is a little bit tougher but still rounded. Ground up almond or walnut shells will work. If you have a nut allergy, jojoba beads are a safe alternative. Another good choice in the “mild” category is coffee grinds. Raspberry and blackberry seeds work too.

For Strong Exfoliation

Options in this category are sugars like white cane sugar, brown sugar, or even raw sugar mixed with olive oil.

There are probably a lot more things you can use and I’ll think they are all a better alternative to little plastic balls.

Ethical Question

Would you take plant cuttings from a garden centre?

 Would you pick a few tips from plants when you are visiting a public or private garden? How about when you are walking in a public park or past a council summer planter?  Would you be tempted? Old Percy Thrower in the 1970’s closed his doors to the public after most of his plants were stripped. One visitor said she didn’t think her one cutting would be noticed. Times that by 100,000 (see my large numbers theme going on here) and you will see that your one cutting will be the tip of a rather large issue.  After working for the council parks department and growing plants I know just how problematic it can be.  One garden is stolen from every eight minutes apparently and I’ll bet that statistic isn’t taking cuttings into consideration. The thefts will be more like lawnmowers and ornaments.

I’ll admit do taking the odd cutting. I was young, which is no excuse really. My enthusiasm for building up my houseplant collection when I was a teenager outweighed my financial situation. I just snipped the odd leaf or stem of a tradescantia from the garden centres. i don’t even think about taking cuttings now but I will deadhead spent flowers when I see them. Nipping tips off is a hard habit to break.

Feelings can run very high on the subject and most see even taking one geranium cutting as stealing, just as much so as clearing the shed out of tools. Someone on a forum thinks taking cuttings without permission the worst kind of stealing "because gardeners should live on a higher ethical plane" I’m not sure about that but it sounds good.