What's in Flower in October

Echinacae.

Golden rod.

Mark Patterson
LBKA Forage Officer

Only the most hardy of flowers are still in bloom in my garden as whilst the days have been mild, it is starting to become much colder at night. My pumpkins, courgettes and nasturtiums are already keeling over due to the cold nights, only my cosmos and sunflowers persist out of the garden annuals I have flowering. Quite a few of my herbaceous perennials are struggling on however with Cat Mint, Helenium, Rudbeckia, Asters, Golden rod and Penstemon still in bloom.

Away from my own garden I've spotted Abelia, Choisya, Hebe (Autumn Joy) and Escalonia pushing out a late flush of second blooms, though not in sufficient abundance to entice honey bees to visit.

The ivy flow is now coming to an end with most of the blooms already fading and the signs of the first berries appearing. These will ripen in time for late winter and will provide a feast for over wintering thrushes and wood pigeons after the red berries of hawthorn, cotoneaster and sorbus have all been polished off.

I've been busy in the greenhouse this past week, cleaning the green house firstly to evict slugs and snails hiding in stacks of empty pots and cleaning algae and moss from the windows to ensure over wintering plants receive as much light as possible through the dimly lit winter. Having been cleaned I am now busy propagating cuttings from my favourite aromatic shrubs including lavender, sage, rosemary and cuttings from flowering currant, Escalonia and Hebe. I've also been cutting down fading stems from herbaceous plants and lifting and dividing them to propagate for next year. This week I've done this to marjoram, mints, catmint and next on my list are the Heleniums, Asters and Kniphofia.

My bulbs are now all in the ground including an additional 200 Saffron Crocus. The ones I planted last year are just beginning to flower offering pollen to the bees on warm days and soon Saffron for my kitchen!

Other tasks to be getting on with in the garden include collecting fallen leaves to make leaf mulch for the garden -- this is great as a top dressing for suppressing weeds and feeding the plants.