A warm autumn and benign lead into winter has produced many out of season horticultural surprises. The Raspberry ‘Autumn Bliss’ was prolific in fruiting  and even now has a few remaining, if tasteless, fruit on the tips of the canes. Rosa ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ is producing vase perfect flowers and unusually for this time of year relatively strongly perfumed. Unfortunately the rogue in the pack is the Sow Thistle, Sonchus oleraceus. Flowering profusely and full of milky latex, the growth and development of these annuals are usually curtailed by the lower temperatures of the season.

Sow Thistle

Rosa ‘Stanwell Perpetual’

Raspberry ‘Autumn Bliss’