Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Day – autumn growth

Welcome to Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Day, the post where I urge you to consider and appreciate the benefits that foliage gives to your garden.

May 5th 2016 – Evening light

Today has been sunny and warm, still with a wind but not as cold as the last couple of weeks.  Two days ago I was wearing 2 fleeces today I was comfortable in a short sleeved T-shirt.

The Slope on Thursday, it just gets better and better!

The past week has had mixed weather; hot and sunny but cold, overcast and windy at the weekend, then hot again on Monday and Tuesday, overcast again on Wednesday and rain is forecast for today but as yet it’s sunny.

The Slope on Thursday and summer has arrived!

Spring never really warmed up in the way it has done in other years.  The evenings remained cool and mornings fresh.  This week has been the first time when I have gone out into the garden in the morning with just a T-shirt rather than a fleece, and a long sleeved-fleece at that!

The Slope on Thursday – Chiaro/Scuro

The weather remains changeable!  I don’t think I’ve ever written that during a summer in Italy.  Yesterday and today are hot but there is a breeze and in the evening the temperature drops so that it isn’t always possible to eat outside.  The whole garden is more lush and jungle-like than I have ever seen it.

The Slope on Thursday 3rd April

It has been sunny and warm and perfect gardening weather since last Thursday but the forecast says it will rain tomorrow and Saturday and the north wind will return so no more lunches outside for a little while.
All of the trees are now showing their new green leaves and the crab apple and quince have flowers!

The Slope on Thursday 27th March

The weather has been wintery since last Thursday; it seems unusual to have such a long period of cold temperatures in March but I don’t think that is true, it can snow in this part of Italy in March!
So it is lucky I didn’t have time to plant some of the tomatoes out as I had intended, fortunately the sunflowers are tougher than I suspected and are still alive, but they haven’t grown at all this week. On Monday night the temperature in the greenhouse fell to 2.8° C and there was frost on the solar panel, which it has to be said seems to have frost on it when nothing else does, there must be some logical reason for this but nothing springs to mind.

The Slope on Thursday 13th March

The cold wind from the NNE has been blowing for more than a week, until yesterday that is, when suddenly after a cold windy beginning to the morning (an frost on the solar panel at 7 am) at about 11 am the wind dropped and it felt more like spring, and the forecast for the next week or so is more of the same!  During the day it feels like spring and each day there is something new to discover flowering.

The Slope on Thursday 24th October

Again I’m late!  Yesterday, Thursday it rained from 8.30 in the morning through until 5 in the afternoon; and not just rain, but thunder rattled around for most of that time by which time I had other commitments and couldn’t get outside to take any photographs, today I went outside at about 9 to take these images; amazingly the sun was shining and the day became positively hot (about 24°C).  The day of rain was a surprise as the weather had been exceptional; warm, sunny, and no wind since last Thursday.

Today we began harvesting the olives, T-shirts were the order of the day and I really needed sun block as well as sunglasses!

The Slope on Thursday 10th October

Autumn has finally truly arrived with some rain every day this week; but not all day so that yesterday the weather was glorious warm sunshine for at least 4 or 5 hours, time to get weeding, especially the circular rose bed which becomes very overgrown each year with Gaura growing to about 1.2 plus metres!  Strangling the roses and hiding weeds.

This morning there was pleasant sunshine when I woke but by 9.30 rain was falling again; I just manages to take some photos of the Slope before the wind started making it unpleasant to be outside, who knows what it will be like this afternoon.