Late colour in the garden

We have yet to have had a hard frost where I live in Northern Ireland, so there's still some great colour in the garden (along with the leaves as they fall from the trees daily and litter the garden!). 

Many of the late  Summer flowers are continuing into Fall/Autumn. Some plants, of course, are looking tired each day,  and I continue to do a bit of deadheading - at least until the weather gets worse.

Here's a little summary of what has looked well in October, and is keeping providing some colour going into November...

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Loving the Autumn Colours

So loving the colours of Autumn...

this is such a fab time of year with lots of red, orange, and yellow, as plants begin their seasonal change and there's a distinct feel and freshness of Autumn in the air...

as Summer begin to fade and flowers die down...

and plants soon slumber over Winter, only to emerge again in Spring.

Dogwood Shrub looking fab with berries, and leaves and stems turning a deep red. This is a great Winter plant.

Sunflowers finishing flowering,  making seed for collecting and sowing in the New Year.

Acer /Japanese Maple tree leaves looking fab with their Autumn colour.

Hostas  looking a bit tired and tattered as they turn yellow and die down for Winter.

Carex Bronze grass looking very Autumn like (however this one looks like this all year round!)

Hope you're enjoying all the Autumn colour! 

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

VegTastic Display

Leek dressed to impress!

The temperature may be dropping but there's still lots of harvesting to be done... 

apples are ripening, 
leeks are fat and ready, 
lettuces are still hearting, 
fennel is going to seed, 
onions are being dried, 
and there's still beetroot, kale and lots of other goodies to bring to the table. 

Over the weekend I visited the City of Belfast Autumn Flower (and Veg) Show.  It was quite a small show but lots of effort had noticeably gone into it. Of course it was pouring rain the day I attended, but I still really enjoyed viewing all the fantastic displays. 

Here are some of my favourite photos, from the Northern Ireland Vegetable Association (NIVA) display - and what a lovely display it was!

Lots of herbs, veg, and fruit displayed very carefully by the NIVA team!

One of the NIVA members made a 'market cart' to display their prize fruit and veg, costing £50 in wood (excluding the wheels) and excluding labour provided in-kind. It looked lovely! 

Eye catching preserves, edible flowers and herbs decorated the top of the display cart. 

Congrats to the Northern Ireland Vegetable Association (NIVA) on a great display and what looks to be a great harvest year.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Spectacular Sedum Plants

One of the easiest plants to grow are Sedums. 

There are a good choice of varieties; they are generally carefree and  can be easily divided to make more plants. 

Pictured is a low growing alpine-type sedum plant that produces white flowers around July-August.

Above: the same small alpine-type sedum that was coming into flower in June. These plants self seed into gravel or tiny cracks amongst paving. They can be pulled apart easily to make new plants and provide good ground cover. They will take over an area (something to look our for)!

Above and Below: Sedum 'Autumn Joy' - is a great plant for any garden.  It grows throughout the summer with green flower heads that start turning pink (pictured above) around September, moving to red, and then to a deep burgundy colour (pictured below) around November.

My gardening group has an annual plant swap every Autumn. Sedum is one of the plants I'll be taking to the plant swap, as it's such a useful plant to have in the garden and is so easy to grow.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Still Feeling Like Autumn

It's less than 3 weeks to Christmas and apart from gales and one or two frosts, it's still feeling rather like Autumn - with leaves still falling from trees, pine cones on display and Autumn colours in the garden. 

I celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend and cooked with home grown potatoes (Maris Peer and Charlotte) dug up in October and stored in cotton sacks in a dark kitchen cabinet. I think I have just enough for Christmas and then they'll be used up. They have stored well this year.

I just love all the Autumn colours - beach trees are great for this!

Above and Below: Birds are feeding on sunflower seeds and berries in the garden. (A few bird feeders with nuts and seeds help out too!)

Above and Below: Variegated holly and red tinted leaves remind me its getting close to the Christmas holidays!

Hope your holiday planning is going well!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Forest Flame and the Irish Garden

One of the most common plants in Irish gardens is the Pieris evergreen shrub. Not sure why these plants are so popular, maybe because they're inexpensive and fairly hardy. I see it in garden after garden; I have three in my own garden. It's one of those plants that changes appearance throughout the seasons. I used to think these plants were all 'Forest Flame' but looking on the internet there are different varieties such as 'Bert Chandler'. I still think I have the 'Forest Flame' variety which is probably one of the most common Pieris type.

Above: Photo taken Oct 2013 - The little white flowers are an added benefit in the garden - although the flowers aren't particularly noticeable from afar.

Above: Photo taken May 2013 - the young leaves are starting to turn bright red.

Above: Photo taken June 2013 - the young foliage goes from bright red, to pink, and cream. Then to green.

Above: Photo taken October 2013 - I find the shrub slightly difficult to shape, therefore, they can look a little untidy (as in this photo). I believe this shrub only takes light pruning after flowering but I usually forget.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Late Salad Trials

This year I'm trying to keep a supply of salad leaves going through early Winter. I've sown a few different varieties. However, one salad veg has caused me confusion over the months - Radicchio 'Palla Rossa'. The seed pack photo (see seed pack below) looks more like a cabbage. 

Left: my Radicchio, 5 months into growth, looks more like a lettuce; pretty but it tastes very bitter and inedible. (I kept waiting for it to look like the photo below before harvesting.)

Above: The seed pack description of Radicchio 'Palla Rossa'. I sowed seed again in late July and they too look to be developing the same way as my top photo. Every year I try to grow some new veg, some a success and some not a success. I suppose I would have to say my Radicchio looked pretty, but was disappointing.

Above and Below: On a more positive note, in early August I sowed seeds called 'Winter Blend' and they seem to be a mix of mizuna, mustard, kale and rocket to make up salads. They're doing well and hoping they'll keep me going a bit longer in salads.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

End of October Flowers

Today marks the end of British Summer Time. It's only a few days until the end of October (no frost yet) and the garden still has a good amount of interest and colour through plants like sedum, grasses, kaffir lily, pieris forest flame, and the red stems of the dogwood shrub.

The wet, damp weather has been good for the weeds and they're multiplying thick and fast. I've still loads of weeding and tidying to do before I retire from general garden work for the Winter. 

Above: Sedum Autumn Joy amongst the Bergenia leaves.

Sedum Autumn Joy is a survivor; here it grows through heather.

Above: The grassy looking Schizostylis Coccinea (Kaffir Lily) are in their flowering prime.

Kitty follows me through the garden and enjoys a scratch against the red stems of the Cornus dogwood shrub.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Frosty Mornings

It's been a mild Autumn so far, with our temperature  this month fluctuating but mostly staying in the 40's (fahrenheit). Some frost as well and one morning I went out to capture a few frosty photos. There's something magical about cold, frosty mornings. I'm also looking forward to snow - December always seems like our month for a bit of snow. 

Left: Frost covered fern.

Above & Below: Frost covered geranium (perennial).

I love the frost covered Sedum Autumn Joy. 

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Autumn Weekend Jobs

I've been making a list of things I need to do in the garden... the list gets longer and longer by the week. I'd love to put the garden to rest for Winter and not venture out until.... either a nice Autumn day or early Spring (March), however, there's still much to do.

So here's part of my 'to do' list and what I hope to get done over the weekend (weather permitting).

1. Rake and bag leaves. (Check leaves I bagged last year to see if broken down).

2. Harvest kale. (Harvest carrots too.)

3. Leave plants to self seed - like these Honesty.

4. Trim or tidy up shrubs. Cut down the old cordyline palm tree trunks (in the distance) - this has been on my list about a year now!

5. Make new plants out of grasses that have self seeded - see the baby bronze grasses at the far right of photo above?

Above and Below: I've already been digging up plants that have self seeded and potting them up for friends. I could probably supply a nursery!

Have a great weekend!

Copyright: All words and photos of this blog are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.