End of Month View – Oct 2014 : Surprises in the Garden

One of the greatest things of working part-time is having Mondays and Fridays at home and today the last day of the month, I have been able to take photos of the garden and write my EOMV post on the day it is due.

This morning the garden is green, lush and damp, also it is unseasonably mild.  I love it when it looks dewy and green, it has a particular smell about it which I can’t describe but am sure you will know what I am talking about.

There are strange things going on.  Rather than dying down and getting ready for winter, some plants have been duped into thinking it is spring.

The Cleome and Penstemon are flowering again.

Even the gaudy, blousey, magenta dahlia is still producing flowers.

The Agapanthus, which died down really quite early this year, is throwing up new shoots.  I will have to make sure that I mulch it well before the frosts come.

The aquilegia are coming up all over the garden with the promise that spring comes after winter.

The raspberries are over and I have cut these down, but in order to prevent the local cats using the bed as a toilet I have had to put lots of sticks and paraphernalia to make it more difficult for them.   At this point, although I won’t show a photo, one particular cat, took no notice of the chicken wire I have over the raised bed, and has poo’d on top of the wire, so later today I will have a nasty mess to clear up.

 I am going to have to move the flower pots into a more sheltered spot shortly.   The stocks, which you can see in the foreground,  I grew from seed and was looking forward to some wonderful scented flowers, didn’t flower at all, which was really disappointing.

The passion flower, growing over the side garden water butt is looking really good still, but is also a haven to the snails.  Last year when I finally cut it down, I had to wash the wall down as it was covered in mess.

There are even some very tiny olives on the olive tree.

At the end of September I planted up several pots of “lasagne” bulbs with tulips, daffodils and dwarf iris, topped off with pansies.  Details of this is in my post called “Getting Ready for Spring”.

Finally, guess what??!!!   Some of the bulbs are coming through all ready.

So there we are a brief round up of my garden on the coast in West Sussex at the end of October 2014.   As always, thank you Helen from Patient Gardener for hosting this great diary log known as the End of Month View.   Visit all the other contributors HERE and see what is happening in their gardens.