I am late with my account of what is flowering in my garden on the 15th October. We have had such strong winds for the last 5 days it has been almost impossible to take any photos at all. I waited until today hoping that the wind would drop and it has slightly but I’m afraid not all my blooms are here – many of the photos were just too out of focus to be shared.
Thank you Carol at May Dreams garden for hosting this meme; visit her to see blooms from around the world.
Since GBBD in September we have had some very strange weather here in Lazio. On the night of 18th September we had thunder and lightning, sheet and fork , that lasted for most of the night; there wasn’t any rain for hours of the storm but in a two hour period we did have 30 cm of rain fall; yes! That’s not a mistake a foot of water in 2 hours! And then it continued to rain so that in all we must have had 40cm in one night. It is said that London and Rome both have the same amount of rain in a year but in London it probably rains 280 days where as in Rome it all falls in less than 100 days. So that when it does rain – it literally floods down!
In the lower part of the garden we have what was 2 thousand years ago an Etruscan tomb, converted and used as a stable for animals from who knows when until about 25 years ago – we use it as a store; it’s not very useful as it is so damp that wine bottles stored there lose their labels within a month – so we have had to find somewhere else to store our wine. There is a step down into the store so that when it rained and washed most of the topsoil from the surrounding fields over the lane that is the only access to our house, water and mud flooded into the store leaving the mud and showing the depth of water and mud to have reached 60cm – I am only grateful that the garden wasn’t flooded or indeed washed away.
Even the soil on the steep slope that I have been featuring in ‘The end of month view’ was held in place by the planting of stipa tenuissima and other plants; proving that bare soil is always a bad idea that leads to erosion.
Mud filled the ditch that takes our downpipe water had to be dug out; it also covered the area I’d been preparing to plant some trees, the weeds had been removed but the fields had just been reseeded with grass so now I have a beautiful crop of grass!
The rain was followed by beautiful days with sunshine and temperatures returning to those that we expect in August. We have enjoyed some days at the beach; the hot weather continued until the beginning of this week when the wind turned and blew from the north bringing cold air, so much so that the bed has gone from having just a linen sheet to a nice warm duvet which has been snuggled under in a 10 day period.
The autumn work I wanted to do in the garden will have to be compressed into a couple of weeks – September the temperatures were too high to transplant anything other than tough Iris and Hermerocallis, and this week it has been so windy it was almost impossible to stand……
I’d be interested to know what you think the first flower is in the slideshow – I sprinkled several, very old packs of seeds by the side of the drive, I think this is from these but I don’t regognise what it is.
The rain combined with the hot sun means that most of the plants blooming in September are still blooming now with the addition of Asters which hadn’t really started last month.
If you click on the image below you can see some of what is blooming in My Hesperides Garden this mid October.
Don’t forget to join in GBFD (Garden Bloggers Foliage day) next Saturday the 22nd October. I hope you’ll have some lovely autumn colour to share or of course, maybe it is spring where you are in which case you can cheer us northern hemisphere gardeners with images of the promise of spring! Where ever you are I look forward to seeing how you use foliage in your garden.
I really like the rose and datura. They look very pale and delicate, really good for this time of the year. I think I may have a go at GBFD next time!!!
Thanks Anthony, yes please do join in GBFD, I look forward to it.
Next year I am planting all the Daturas near the house where I can catch the vespertine fragrance without having to go out into the dark
Lovely flowers on your flickr page. I hope to join your GBFD too.
Rosie
Oh – that miscanthus! Lovely…. and the datura. Sigh – and despite the bizarre weather, too.
(Hopefully I’ll join in the foliage meme next week. There’s certainly plenty of foliage chez moi. Not many flowers, but foliage – yup.)
I’m looking forward to all the lovely foliage next week, please do join in. Christina
Love those white asters,no idea what the flower at the front is,but its very lovely all the same.
One of the white Asters is Monte Casino – it flowers and flowers and is just one mass of bloom too. Can you take cuttings from Asters? Must be able to I suppose. Christina
I just love the rose Mutabilis. So pretty, whichever color it happens to be. And your grasses are beautiful, too. So sorry to hear of your bad weather. So much rain at one time can not be good, or easy to deal with.
Good heavens, that is an extraordinary amount of rain to have in such a short space of time. Glad your garden survived. That first photograph is really beautiful, but I have no idea what it is. “Hibiscus” came into my head when I saw it, but the centers are all wrong for that. We changed to our heavier duvet the weather instantly got so warm we switched to just a sheet! Crazy weather, confused plants, all very strange.
The rain was very localised and we seemed to get all there was, the local press quoted the quantities I said but I don’t use the rain gauge I have so I can’t be 100% sure. The 60cm level in the tomb was accurate because I measured it for insurance purposes – but the mud and water was trapped there so that isn’t that useful in knowing exactly how much rain actually fell. Christina
I wondered where you were. That is an awful lot of rain and there is a bit of me which is jealous as we really need some rain here but maybe not as much is such a short period of time. Hope the weather lets you get everything done you want to do
Hi Helen. The cold wind from the north (Tramontana) usually only blows for 3 days but this time it is already 6! Christina
Hi, Christina, I enjoyed the slide show and all the views of your garden, one of my favorites among all the bloggers i follow! I can’t imagine that much rain, and then the wind! You have done a masterful job preventing soil erosion!
Thank you Deb, I was very surprised the stipa held the soil, grasses are probably one of the best plants for the job. Christina
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has old seed packets and scatters them to see what will happen. I photographed some foliage recently and thought to myself I should save it for GBFD.
Hi, I don’t even sow the old seed anywhere I’ll remember what I’ve sown, so not very intellegent of me. Please do post your foliage. Christina
What an amazing number of flowers you have and in very good condition, your grasses are looking superb.
Sorry to hear about all your rain and mud – how lucky that it didn’t destroy your garden.
Your grasses look amazing, and you have a lot of stunning colour through your garden too despite such tumultuous weather. Glad that you didn’t lose any of the garden to the storms. I really love the gaura through the stipa, the flowers really look like butterflies. Looks like you have one of the aster lateriflorus varieties too, I love the pink eyes.
Yes, you’re correct, I grow A. laterflorus ‘The Prince’ as a small hedge between the vegetable garden and the triangular rose bed. Christina
So many blooms–lovely! I’m sorry I can’t help with the flower i.d., but I’ve done the same before–scatter seeds and then wonder what something is. Love all your beautiful grasses!
It is so great we are both enjoying a late flush of summer weather. It can’t help but make it seem that winter will be shorter. Christina
Wow Christina, I can see the same light and thin, clean air I have here, the pictures of some paths are amazing! It seems you can eventually be there and have a walk into the picture!
PS: I took some picture for the 22nd this time and I’ve already selected the best, so I’m ready and I won’t be late like this GBBD!
Could your seed be some kind of Arabis–that’s what I thought of when I saw the flower. Happy Late GBBD.
It could be an Arabis, I have others in the garden, although not like these. I don’t have the packets any more, so I’ll never know for sure. I intend moving the plant to somewhere I can enjoy it more as its very delicate and small. Christina
Absolutely beautiful…that last shot with the long view is just stunning!
Thanks Scott, I don’t take enough images of the long views. Christina
Hey Christina,
Love your blooms. I just did my first GBBD EVER. Very exciting.
Great to have you in this useful as well as enjoyable meme. Why not join in my foliage meme on the 22nd. Christina
I love your photos. I’ve really enjoyed seeing your garden in Italy, seeing the plants you grow and what you still have in flower.
Great photos. It’s interesting to see gardens in other countries and what you’re growing. We’ve had some beautiful weather in the UK this Autumn but it feels like winter is not far away today. We had our first frost last night and I’m gardening with 2 pairs of socks on today.
I love your grasses and plantings along the pathway at your back border! Stunning. The Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ is a stunner!
Happy GBBD 🙂