… is full of surprises.
Although Guernsey is renowned for its mild climate, it is usually exceedingly windy when I am there and it can be very cold, although it rarely snows. The most interesting plants grow happily on the Island, including the sub-tropical.
I have just come back from a long weekend with my Father and on Sunday afternoon I took a drizzly, windy, but interesting walk around his garden. In his 80′s, Dad potters and controls what goes on but leaves the hard work to a gardener. The wide gravel path winds around the edge, with shrubs and trees on either side. They are lucky enough to have a bore hole in the garden which provides watering when required, so it always looks lush.
The first thing that struck me as being unusual was the Agapanthus which was throwing out new flowers. This is a plant that should be shutting down by now, although these are of the hardy evergreen variety.
This peculiarity got me thinking and I was then on the lookout for anything else that was flowering at the wrong time. As I wandered down the path I found Azaleas still in flower and the Rhododendrons packed with buds.
As you can see from the first picture, there is a lot of green in the garden in the form of shrubs and trees, any colour at this time of the year is provided by some wonderful Hydrangea. I took lots of photos of the different varieties from various angles, and you will see most of them in another post, due to be written shortly. In the meantime take a look below at a small selection of what is to come.
The next shrub no one knew the name of and it was certainly one that was new to me. Before writing this post, I posed a “What it this?” question on Twitter, it did stump a few, but eventually the answer came : Cestrum Elegans. Isn’t it unusual and lovely? I would be interested to know if you have one in your garden and the conditions it thrives in.
Not only plants that should flower in the Spring and Summer were still in bloom, the Hellebore are in flower also. Correct me if I am wrong but I thought they didn’t flower until the Winter.
At this stage I thought nothing else was going to surprise me until I found a Lemon Tree, growing against a side wall, complete with lemons and blossom.
One final picture to complete the round up of a Guernsey Garden in October, was an exceptionally healthy looking Bottle Brush Tree Callistemon. It must have been about 10 ft high and was looking magnificent with its many red flower spikes. I have seen small bushes growing but never one this size.
As this is my 130th post since I started to write my blog, here is one more photo for good measure!