Thompson & Morgan Gardening Blog

Hello Gardeners,

There are many things I look forward to in November, bonfire night, my Mum’s birthday, occasional Black Friday Deals, Cyber Monday, and even Mo-vember when the men in our office would compete all month with each other to grow the best moustache, and be sponsored by the rest of the workforce to raise money for prostate cancer research. But the one thing I didn’t look forward to was an empty greenhouse. So this year, I thought I’d have a go at overwintering more than just a few delicate plants, tubers, strawberries, and kale or onion. Only, it’s all gone a little bit wild.

Seedlings Galore!

My intention was to set off a few seeds, with the hope that they would germinate before the cold weather set in – that said, I wanted the seedlings to be big enough to be transplanted into 2-3 inch pots so that they could put down a good root system and then become more leafy in early spring. The seedlings had other ideas. They were so happy to be placed in warm autumnal compost that they grew exceptionally fast. Last month I transplanted the bigger babies and placed them in the cold frame to calm down. All was going well until, suddenly the cold frame was too small, the weather had turned to biting winds and heavy downpours meaning they could no longer be moved to their final growing positions. What the dickens was I now going to do with all the plants that I had grown?

To be honest this has been the best Autumn for me in gardening terms ever. Looking back over the last three years of my Autumn posts I have noticed that we are having similar mild temperatures, little frosts, but biting winds, that sometimes turning into damaging gales. As with previous years, slugs seem to invade my greenhouse at this time of year, more than Spring. Sneaking in to munch on fresh seedlings. Also, this time last year I was banned from gardening because of my chemotherapy so, maybe it’s just a case of truly appreciating the greenhouses more, and choosing to be in them regardless of the weather.

So this month I have been in The Office transplanting Old English (Orange) marigold, Snow Princess Calendulas, Malva Moschatas, Larkspur, cornflowers, Nasturtium, Radish,Turnip, Heleniums and Radish. I still need to do the Amaranthus, but I ran out of pots. Then when I transplanted them, they grew like crazy in the mild weather.

I’m still waiting for the foxgloves, Knifophias, liatris, and grasses as well as the hyacinths. I lost the two white lavender cuttings,I tried to rescue from the garden centre.

The tiny single leaf cutting I took from my Christmas cacti in the spring has grown threefold. He will be brought into the house in early December where he will live until it’s time to give him as a present to an unsuspecting relation or friend.

Tomato ‘Yellow Stuffer’

Joy of joys, I still have a yellow stuffer tomato growing with a few ripening fruits. I am trying to beat my own record of having a tomato from an unheated greenhouse in December. I really hope I can achieve this. I wonder if there is a record for this? I am sure I read somewhere that tomatoes are perennial, but that as growers we treat them as annuals. Have you heard this? I’m going to experiment with my current plant – though I’m not holding out much hope, you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as I write this, it will either succumb to blight, frost or just die back to annoy me.

The other indoor border plants are showing no signs of going dormant for the winter. These plants never get slug attacked. But then again the cacti and Aloes are spiky, the money tree is woody and maybe the houseplants don’t taste great.

I need to give the greenhouse a good sweep out and tidy up a set of staging, which is now mostly holding seed germination trays, string, hand tools, solar lights, and other gardening paraphernalia. I need to do this on a fairly dry day so I can lay stuff on the grass without getting soaked.

The Money Tree

Meanwhile in Ty Mawr the spent tomatoes, aubergines,amaranths and marigolds have been cleared away. All done by Mark as due to my heart failure, I’m not allowed to lift heavy or repetitive loads or dig. The shelves are full of dahlias drying off to be wrapped in newspapers for the winter. As well as the spider plant, three baby money plants, again for unsuspecting relatives or friends, a basket of winter heathers and cyclamen from a dear friend, and random bits and bobs like spare secateurs, string and scissors.

The left and back have been dug over, but the canes and wire framework has been left for next year’s fruits. However, one of my T&M aubergines is still standing in the back border on account of it being absolutely tiny and hardly any bigger than when it got transplanted there in early summer. It’s now going to be another experiment to see if it can overwinter in an unheated greenhouse. This little plant never gave me any fruits, so I’m hoping the fact that it’s established before any other food stuff goes in next year, it may turn out to be early fruiting and the most tasty.

The right border has 2 snail munched pepper plants that appear to have gone dormant. Again in my madness, I’m going to see if they will last out the winter. Next to it is the purple nicotiana that insists on pushing up more flowers – although it is starting to get a bit droopy. A chilli pepper plant that is still only about two foot high yet continues to produce red hot chillies – albeit rather late in the year. If I remember correctly the chillies don’t usually die off until December with me, so who knows, it may be chillies and turkey on Christmas Day.

The onions have slowed down their growth, but look ok. They have been joined by a turnip that the slug missed last month.

Planted Greenhouse Border

Then in my infinite wisdom (sarcasm is such a low form of wit…) I asked Mark if he would help me put at least small 60 pots of plants from The Office into the newly dug borders. Which roughly translated as” Mark, will you put these plants in the soil, while I stand about looking like I know what I am doing, and not making a huge mistake when they all drop their seeds and you have to dig out flowers from fruit next year please?”

Then I made him put some in the right border too, just to make use of the sparsely populated soil.

I’m trying to convince myself it will be okay! On the plus side I will have a spring filled greenhouse of black cornflowers intermingled with bright orange marigolds. Both plants will attract bees which in turn will pollinate my fruits. The plants will also make the stems of tomatoes and aubergines look pretty and colourful,and give off a beautiful scent. They may also help with deterring pests.

On the negative, I may accidentally attract a colony of slugs. I may have planted the flowers too late in the year and they may not get enough root establishment to see them through the cold weather – although each plant was very pot bound and could no longer support its leaves due to the rapid growth. And finally I may end up wishing I never put flowers in the food greenhouse as they now grow like weeds. Only time will tell.

Lastly the cold frame is still full with foxgloves, violas, marigolds, larkspur and cornflowers. I don’t think there is time before the first frosts to put them in winter pots, so,they will stay there until spring.

Still Flowering!

Over the next few days, I am hoping to ask Mark to dig up the rest of the dahlias, and cut back the strawberries. We need to move the geraniums and begonias into one of the greenhouses to keep warm. The raspberry canes have been cut, we need to move s plum tree, and cut back the shasta daisies the Gladiola stems and the spent hollyhocks. Believe it or not the grass also needs cutting too.

I’m still off sick at the moment and although I feel so much better than before, I still get hit with unexpected fatigue as well as feel the cold so much more. I don’t have the energy that I used to, nor the strength or stamina. But what I do have is the passion to learn more and more each day, the need to feel the sun/wind/rain on my face, the love for gardening and wildlife. If nothing else I have found out that nothing can make me more happy than being able to play in the mud once again.

Until next time.

Happy Gardening,

Love Amanda xx

Amanda Davies

My name is Amanda and I live in Pembrokeshire with my fiancé and our garden is approximately 116 meters square. I want to share with you my love for gardening and the reasons behind it, from the good to the bad and ugly. I want to do this for my own personal pleasure. If you would like to take the journey with me then please read my blogs and share with me your gardening stories.

Whilst Cyprus enjoys an Indian summer, (or even a Cypriot summer for that matter,) the UK is plunging head first into winter. Having just spent a glorious week in 26ᵒc Paphos, staying with friend Naomi – how thoughtful of her to relocate to such a lovely home – it was quite a shock to the system to return to dreary 13ᵒc London. (Feel guilty now saying that, as if being disloyal to a family member!) However, I actually find myself to be more acclimatised to the cooler weather, spending so much time as I do outdoors. Who would have thought it ! In fact today we are experiencing a lovely crisp sunny day in Finchley and I feel invigorated as I pick the last of the windfall apples from underneath our ancient tree. For some reason they are the size of cricket balls this year so quite glad I wasn’t underneath when they fell.

Excuse my ignorance but until our recent visits to Cyprus I had no idea just how close to the Middle East it was, and how that impacted on its flowers. Plants that we treat as annuals here grow into shrubs and trees over there! Lantana: neighbour Anne nurses her cherished lantanas over the winter like delicate invalids, but Over There they grow into huge hedges with stems as thick as your fingers. The collective fool’s errand of trying to grow lavender successfully in the clay soil of the Hampstead Garden Suburb (henceforth to be referred to as The Suburb) is in deep contrast with the robust dense aromatic shrubs thriving in the thin stony soil of the Med. When visiting mountainside Monastery Neophytos we were captivated by the sunken courtyard garden, viewed from its ancient cloisters. Colour and vigour on a grand scale. Huge clumps of ginger and canna lilies, brugmansias growing into trees, Ali Baba pots of bougainvillaea and oleander, all surrounded by characteristic *Cypress trees. And the roses! We shouldn’t be surprised by their presence amongst all this exotica, considering their origins:

The first known paintings of a rose are actually frescoes, the earliest example of which was discovered in Crete around 1600 B.C.

Crusader Robert de Brie is often given credit for bringing the Damask rose from Persia to Europe sometime between 1254 and 1276. It takes its name from Damascus in Syria.

(*As to the reason why its Cypress trees and not Cyprus trees, I just don’t want to know.)

Bearing in mind that this is a gardening blog, I shall make my next paragraph brief: Second only to the flora, Cyprus means Cats to me. Cats at Naomi’s apartment complex, cats around your ankles at bars and restaurants, and above all, due no doubt to the significant British ex-pat community, cat sanctuaries, the largest of which Tala Cat Sanctuary, run by two Brits, has at present over 750 cats. For those of you feline phobics I make no apologies for including a photo of feeding time, a frenzy reminiscent of piranha fish! There is a tenuous link to horticulture here – feral cat communities thrive in the shelter of oleander and lantana hedges planted in raised beds all over the island!

And so to our return. I had imagined that autumn would have turned to winter in our absence and that I would be able to run amok with the secateurs, cutting everything back. I’m tired, I wish everything would die so that I can come indoors and have a rest! But what do I find? Salvias in full flower, a rainbow of colours; no way was I going to dig them up, having waited so long for their finest hour. Leaves still stubbornly sticking to their branches so no point raking until they are all down. Ergo, no chance of applying mulch to borders yet. (How daft are we? We rake off leaves then apply mulch. Why not just leave leaves to rot? Looks messy. Expensive intensive counterintuitive step!)

Still, there’s plenty to do in the meantime. In the Control Room (aka greenhouse) the salvia, fuchsia and penstemon cuttings I took last month are flourishing in their propagator (as is the electricity bill.) I’ve been so encouraged by my success that I have taken cuttings of coleus Campfire, and, fingers crossed, so far so good. I suppose now that the aforementioned cuttings are sprouting new leaves that means they’ve rooted, so I need to pot them on now, do I? Or do I wait until spring? Decisions, decisions!

And I shall not be idle outside either. (Why not? Please, can I be idle soon?) For the two large terracotta pots flanking the rustic arch into the fernery (now doesn’t that sound grand)  I have bought a pair of cornus Alba Sibirica and half a dozen ophio-watsit black grasses to surround them. Now I come to think of it, some white bulbs would make a good contrast so I might just have to go to the nursery again; what a hardship! In the two black planters outside the front door I’ve planted Madonna tulips, Pueblo, Minnou and Falconet species narsissi, topped off with evergreen ferns and white cyclamen. Quite uncharacteristically tasteful for me.

Last Christmas I treated myself to six T&M hyacinth Midnight Mystic bulbs for a festive display in our front porch. Having carefully lifted them after flowering, I transferred them to the greenhouse to dry off, finally removing their dead foliage and roots ready for storage. I must have got bored or distracted because there they sat in a 6” plastic pot under the staging all through the rest of this year until I accidentally found them when tidying up in October!  Still, they felt firm enough so I potted them up in shallow terracotta bulb pans and put them in a dark cupboard for a couple of weeks, and hey presto, they produced shoots! Now happily ensconced in the porch once again, they are sprouting away with visible buds. Amazing resilience!

There are some strange combinations going on in the borders right now, no doubt due to Mother Nature’s seasonal confusion: Late summer flowering Salvia Black & Blue with early spring flowering Coronilla valentina glauca ‘Citrina’ (or Bastard Senna – who knew?) It’s mortal outside but with no frosts and plenty of bright sunshine I feel like the grim reaper pulling up the annual container displays on the patio.

And whilst we talking of odd weather conditions, don’t ever moan to me about the vagaries of the British weather. Whilst In Cyprus it was too hot for me to sit in the sun during the day, but as soon as the sun went down, out came my suede fur lined jacket (travelling attire – I come from a bygone generation who still dress up to travel)) for evening excursions!

And as one of our favourite celebrated gardeners would say: whatever the weather, enjoy your garden.

Caroline Broome

Caroline Broome has been gardening for more than 20 years. Having passed the RHS General Certificate, she has since developed her East Finchley garden into a “personal paradise” that she and her husband invite the public to visit each year via the National Garden Scheme. Learn more about our contributor using T&M’s ‘Meet the experts’ page.