Tag: OctoberPage 1 of 4

Bleached, yellow, red – the range of autumn leaf colour

Bleached white through shades of yellow to the darker red; the range of colour deciduous tree canopies evolve into. There is a timely article, discussing the changes leaves…

Two late flowering composites

Flower colour this late in the season is always welcome as an alternative and to complement the prominence of the deciduous leaf canopy. The dwarf Michaelmas Daisy cultivar…

Autumnal beauty

In full autumn colour, the foliage of Betula papyrifera has turned a golden yellow. This native to North America is ideally situated near the east gate to catch…

Too late to hoe

As herbaceous foliage dies back those weeds that were missed when cultivating through the border during the summer months reveal themselves. With mild temperatures any annuals left to…

Fruit and foliage

The start of the leaf colour season. Stresses show up as early autumn colour. Where plants grow is soils of poor nutrient status or moisture deficit these are…

Review of the Year – 2018

Following on from a Met Office decreed White Christmas in 2017, Edinburgh had a day of snow and then Storm Dylan blew through on the 31st. Fortuitously, the…

The scent of Hamamelis

Opposite the Alpine area is a full flowering specimen of Hamamelis virginiana, an autumn blooming species from Eastern North America. Not to be confused with the Chinese species…

The best transient yellow of the season

Magnificent in full autumn colour Lindera obtusiloba has turned evenly butter rich yellow. The exception being the red leaf petioles which are seen when looking closer at this…

A shaft of sunlight

On the lawn west of the pond is a young specimen of Fraxinus apertisquamifera, a native to Japan. A deciduous tree to 5 metres height and a wide…

Cast to mud

This is the season where worm casts appear on the surface of the lawn. If left and walked or worse, mown over, the squashing, flattening action will result…

Seed heads

The seed pods of Clematis terniflora have split open and are releasing their seed. The plumose styles appear as a mass of white feathers covering the tangled growth….

May to October

The Pumpkin patch in the demonstration garden has come to fruition. The large flat seeds were sown into containers in May. Through the season the trailing growth produced…

Not a sea nymph

The Nerine bowdenii and Nerine sarniensis are lasting well. An unusual cultivar N. ‘Quest ‘(a named hybrid of sarniensis) is growing in a clay pot in the glasshouses…

In the pink

Two plants fusing the shade of pink are the stunning, long lasting flowers of Nerine bowdenii and the fruit of Holboellia grandiflora. The Nerine, a South African bulb;…

Ten years of seasonal plants of interest – 12 that flower or colour reliably year on year.

A lot of plants have caught my eye during the past decade while compiling a weekly profile on a seasonal plant of interest. Below are the consistently reliable…

Growing on the tufa scree with roots into a well-drained substrate is Chaenorhinum origanifolium. This perennial from Southern Europe is flowering well into autumn from a summer start….

Clematis

The Clematis akebioides growing at the east gate lodge is covered in flower. The buds are held on long stalks setting the flower out from the straggly stems….

Triangular Tricyrtis

This week sees a second member of the genus Tricyrtis in flower. T. formosana, this species standing tall and making a show in the peat walls. A profusion…

Pendulous Tricyrtis

Tricyrtis macrantha has the largest flowers of the genus; pendulous yellow tepals are stunning when shown well against the foliage. It is the inner corolla that adds interest,…

A memory

The specimen of Sorbus microphylla agg fruiting profusely in the copse was collected in the Langtang National Park area of Nepal. This is the area devastated by the…