I don’t often show images of the countryside around our home in autumn. In spring the fields and verges are filled with colourful native flowers, but what happens in the second spring?
Autumn and winter is when the countryside is green; as the temperatures have risen in the last week many of the native plants have decided to flower again; not quite with the abundance that is April and May but very welcome anyway.
Just as we were leaving the garden I noticed that my Banksia piena alba is flowering again – amazing as this really should only flower once a year.
White Banksia in the garden
Daucus carota
Chicory, one of the few truly blue flowers
People collect the rosette of foliage of chicory to cook, it is very popular
Campion
There are even a few poppies
Catkins on a hazel
Vines are changing colour – what a pity the grapes don’t make a good wine in my area
Have you noticed any plants flowering at unseasonal times where you live.
Have a lovely weekend.
Unseasonal flowering: Yes – our bottlebrush tree has produced a couple of bracts (if that’s what they are) this month. A very pretty red colour, but they look a bit odd as the rest of the tree isn’t flowering; it usually flowers in spring. Then the guava tree produced one solitary fruit this month, which is very odd. I also have some late pinks and carnations, but that may be because the weather has been warmer than usual until this week, and they continued a bit longer than normal.
Lovely flowers in your post – isn’t the chicory pretty! I don’t know much about meadow flowers. Do the bees enjoy it? They love the blue flowering borage in our garden.
The bees love all the native flowers and take full advantage of the late season blooms.
You’re enjoying a lovely second spring, Christina! We frequently get out of season blooms – Agapanthus in November, for example – but I haven’t seen much of that this year, perhaps because the hot weather continued in fits and starts and rain has been in short supply. However, I did notice one fresh green leaf on my dwarf Japanese maple today – it stood out against the burned, mostly brown foliage clinging to the tree’s stems.
Amazing that your Agapanthus flowers again in November, made mine never do.
Your surrounding countryside is quite beautiful! The grapevines are especially lovely. Generally our grapes don’t make great wine either, but our native muscadine grapes flourish and a number of wines are made from those. They tend to be very sweet wines. There are some wineries in the mountainous northern Alabama that produce good wines.
Some of the local smallholders still make their own wine at home – not using modern refrigerated methods so it is pretty foul!
I love the pale chicory, like a piece of sky ,perfectly blue. No unseasonal flowering here, except a winter rose or two-looking very wet. But there are winter chrysanthemums, and viburnum bodanense covered in pink stars at the back of the jewel border.
I’m not sure why the chicory looks so pale, in reality it is quite a strong blue.
These beauties are certainly worth sharing. I love a good walk and, just now, there are lots of Sasanqua camellias coming in to bloom and the fall foliage is still hanging on…making a trip around the neighborhood especially nice.
A walk without some beautiful views or some interesting plants isn’t much fun is it?
The area around your home and garden looks lovely even in winter. I do often have unseasonal blooms, but I haven’t spotted anything recently. How lovely to see a poppy in November!
Yes the few, very few, poppies were very special.
I like the look of November in your part of the world Christina. What a treat to have so much to enjoy on a country walk.
November and even December are usually quite pleasant here Chloris although this year there has been a lot more rain and accompanying grey skies and this week we are forecast an early frost!
How lovely to have these unseasonal delicate little flowers to enjoy. I currently have a delphinium spire (only about 2 foot high) growing in my front garden, although I am yet to inspect what the latest hard frost did to it two nights ago.
I hope your Delphinium was protected by other plants and is still flowering for you after the frost. We are forecast frost this week too and this morning already feels colder than for the last two weeks.
I have never seen the Daucus carota flowering a second time but there is a lot of wild scabious around us at the moment and I have a wild violet flowering in the garden at the moment. I find it comforting that the plants get as mixed up as we do in changeable weather. Amelia
I don’t think the Daucus carrota is flowring for a second time, rather seed has germinated with the water ans warmth of autumn, interestingly they are all much shorter than in spring and summer.
Well, taking a walk here in Minneapolis the other day we saw a few red rosebuds about to open. Pretty unusual for late November in Minnesota.
Roses seem to have the capacity to flower in many seasons and surprise us.
How lovely to find wild flowers in November! Wild flowers make a walk I think, half the time I’m looking at the ground to see what I can find and then miss the views!
Yes, me too
Thanks for sharing your country walk, Christina. It has finally turned cold here this week so there have been a few wild flowers about in previous weeks. I have seen red campion and until quite recently yellow toadflax. Hills by the sea have a lot of yellow gorse and elsewhere rosemary is just struggling in to flower again. We also have catkins on the hazel in preparation for next spring.
The Hazel seems very early to me this year but perhaps I’m wrong and the catkins always appear now.
Christina’s Banksia blooming again: unblemished and wonderful. The wildflowers are all beautiful. Chicory I love it because of its intense blue color. And Poppies! The landscapes are magnificent, especially the vineyards. A very beautiful walk. Good weekend to you too. Greetings from Margarita.
We are lucky to live in a very beautiful part of the country.
Such a lovely walk. Beautiful images!