November flowers

Oh November, where have you gone? I looked forward to you all year and you've passed in the blink of an eye. The garden is peaking and I haven't had time to appreciate it. When I went out tonight to photograph the roses I realised most of them were overblown and browning off. Oh well, tomorrow night I'll get out and deadhead them and hopefully some more blooms won't be too far off.

I've bought two peonies recently and today my neighbour gave me one he was getting rid of. I am going to have to have a reshuffle to fit them in, especially as I've realised the spot I'd planned for them isn't sunny enough. I have one there and every spring it buds up, but the buds don't swell or develop and eventually fall off. So I will need to put them all somewhere sheltered with full sun. Fussy little buggers, aren't they... but the flowers are worth it!

Above, clockwise from top left: lambs ears and geraniums, staples in my spring garden; Ash Wednesday rose; unknown peony (but doesn't give me any trouble with flowering); snow in summer; sweet william; Queen Elizabeth rose; dusky pink foxglove; Claire rose; peony poppy; chive flowers; unknown white rose; Sexy Rexy rose.

Our spring weather has been quite volatile. Wind is the norm, if we're lucky it's just a brisk breeze but often it blows up into a gale. I came home from work last week to find my Queen Elizabeth rose blown right over and the wooden stake I'd tied it to snapped in half. I found an old fence post and hammered that in and that's held it up so far.

That's it from me tonight... I'm going to try and organise my garden tour photos so I can get a post done on that soon.