First apple of the year

The family apple tree has done really well this year. The tree is about five years old - I planted it three years ago but last year it only produced three apples -all golden delicious.

This is the first Worcester Pearmain we've had from the tree and it was delicious! The flesh is flushed with red inside and it was sweet without being floury and with no sharpness to the flavour. It looks beautiful in the autumn sunshine. 

Plant of the week - Oenothera (Evening Primrose)

There's still a lot going on in my garden at the end of September, but my choice for this week took me by surprise. The evening primrose has had a second wind and exploded in a flurry of large yellow flowers - it had already flowered in late summer, producing blooms at a fairly modest rate, but it looks like this is it's 'swan song'.

Evening Primrose - Oenethera

What's also unusual is that its flowers are open during the day, rather than opening during the late evening as it did during the summer (hence it's name). This means it's being visited by bees rather than moths as you can see on the right hand side of the shot above. It feels like this one was desperate to stock up for the winter months - visiting every flower several times to make sure none were overlooked.

It was hanging around long enough for me to capture some great shots of it, body and legs dripping in pollen, gorging itself inside one of the flowers.

Evening primrose & Buff-tailed bumblebee (queen)

Evening primrose & Buff-tailed bumblebee (queen)

I pinched some seeds that were growing wild by the road at the end of the street. That was last year, and I already have mature plants. I suspect these will be self-seeding and start to pop up everywhere but I really don't mind!

Garden Snapshot - August 2013

Better late than never - August and September were a busy months so I have been playing catch up with my blogs.

Here's the garden snapshot I took in mid-August.

Garden snapshot - August 19th 2013

August is a surprisingly poor month for colour in my garden. The roses have mostly finished, fuschias are on their way out - only the crocosmia and last of the hollyhocks provide a splash of colour. I'll aim to rectify that for next year somehow.

Plant of the week - Cyclamen hederifolium

The first cyclamen in our garden were donated by my Mum - spring flowering - one white and one-pink. I was fascinated by the size and shape of the bulb which didn't seem to correlate with the tiny delicate flowers and leaves of this ephemeral plant, which disappears without a trace after its flowering spell only to re-appear again each year as if by magic.

I immediately fell in love with their delicate tiny flowers, and their early-flowering nature added to their appeal. But buying the bulbs or plants is quite expensive (about £5 per plant or £1 per bulb) so I decide to have a go at growing my own.

Two years on and my hard work and patience has paid off - there are now several of these tiny plants established in secret corners of the garden. I only just spotted these a couple of days ago as I was trudging up the soaked lawn. I was amazed to discover that the flowers appear before the leaves (the leaf in this shot is a fallen hollyhock).

Cyclamen hederifolium

Germination was a bit of a drawn out affair - soaking the seeds, covering with vermiculite and keeping them warm in a sealed plastic bag - but several months later they sprouted, and two years later they are flowering. I'm hoping the carpet of tiny gems will get bigger year on year. This kind of gardening is all about patience! These ones are autumn flowering - so I get two cyclamen fixes each year.

Cyclamen hederifolium

Plant of the week - Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus)

A belated post from last week - 12th september

Strange to say that I was hard pushed to decide on the plant for this week. It may be mid-september but there's still lots going on and lots of little beauties popping up as autumn takes a grip.

What caught my eye this week was a clump of little nasturtiums tucked away in the strawberry patch and this especially bright specimen (not PhotoShop enhanced honestly!).

Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus)

When there's not much colour in the garden that really jumps out at you, this is a little star. I remember chucking some nasturtium seeds in this spot sometime in June when I was having a clearout of old seeds. They are so resilient they don't need any care and will obviously just grow where you throw them.

They are humble plants and often overlooked, but there are some fantastic varieties about and they will self-seed year on year although I am not sure how true the colours are for second and third generation etc.

The best bit about nasturtiums is that you can eat the flowers! They have a slight peppery taste, but they look amazing in a green salad - just make sure they aren't covered in blackfly as mine usually are if they are blooming in mid-summer.