September observations

Well, I know this is a little late. September came and went quite a while ago now.

My summer here in Bristol was not particularly spectacular. I had scorching heat, and with no water access at the back of my house, no chance of watering most of my garden at all. That was in between the pouring rain of course, which incidentally doesn't reach parts of my garden at all due to trees over head that I can't prune for a number of reasons. North facing, dark, cold, with saturated clay soil, and also bone dry and solid in places too! I can see why I have difficulty getting some things to grow!

Still, I had some success with my plants. Above is a picture of one of only two sunflowers that I planted which actually came up. They only grew a couple of feet high, not the 4" stated on the packet, and with wobbly stems. The flowers only lasted a week or so too! But I managed to capture this lovely velvety flower before it faded for good. Isn't that firey orange great with that dusky purple? The variety is called 'Black Magic F1.'

This is Sweet pea 'Pathfinder.' Again, my display was a little lacking. But the flowers which did emerge were pretty. I had another sweet pea planted in another location, with beautiful pure white flowers, I picked the first to emerge getting all excited that there'd be more, and not only did it not flower again, but the entire plant disappeared without trace! I took this picture after a rain shower, I love seeing rain drops sitting on leaves and petals.

Doing my bit for wildlife. This was a pretty late growing nettle, I caught it after the same rain shower pushing its way up between some other plants. I left most of the nettles until just last week to try and encourage some more bugs to make my garden home.

The Elderberries just starting to ripen. I loved the way the spider web was slung between all the berries. No spider in residence though.

And finally Jeff the caterpillar (I don't know why I've named him Jeff. But, Jeff he is.) He was posing in this helpful position, so I just had to capture him! I got a huge number of Cabbage White caterpillars this year destroying my Nasturtium. I don't mind though. I probably got a huge number of well fed birds too!