The last day of November has been a complete washout here with wind and rain for most of the day. Despite storm Clodah hitting us (our third storm in three weeks) a patch of Scabiosa atropurpurea are still in bloom in the garden and what’s more they are full of buds. You may know them as Pincushion flowers. They are tall annual flowers, impossibly glamorous and lightly scented. Here’s a blue one – photo taken in August outdoors.
McQueens have done it again!
We have had the most fantastic Autumn here in Lancashire with stunning leaf colours and lovely mild days. It’s all changing now.
As temperatures start to fall the leaves will fall too. I love autumn and enjoy watching the seasonal changes. No hard frost here yet but it’s on the way I am sure. Until it arrives I am trying to make the most of this season outdoors before we go slip sliding into December and Christmas!
A trio of seed heads.
Most of the seeds have been blown away.
Just a few papery white seeds remain on the skeleton flowers.
There are still some leaves left on our trees despite Storm Barney. The sun has managed to break through occasionally and those shafts of sunlight created some magical moments. This is Hornbeam Carpinus betulus. I can’t tell you how happy I am that these leaves are still clinging to the trees… at least for now. They are ragged and quite past their best but under the circumstances they are looking good to me today!
Storm Barney is still raging so I’m distracting myself by pretending it’s still summer and looking at photos of beautiful flowers.
This is the Peony flowered poppy Papaver paeoniflorum which has a beautiful frilly centre to each flower. They are full of pollen and there is enough room in the centre of each bloom to allow bees and other insects to land and collect the goodies. The papery petals are palest pink with splashes of deeper pink at the base of each one.
It seems that our weather really is changing. The Met Office are now actually naming storms that affect the UK and Ireland in much the same way as hurricanes are named elsewhere in the world. We have always had gale force winds in November but this year they already seem to be stronger than in previous years with trees felled, torrential downpours of rain and widespread flooding. The Met Office have been very helpful and their website includes weather forecasts, videos, severe weather warnings and even infographics to use on your website or blog.
The weather is foul here in North West England. We have had a lovely mild autumn so far and it seems that we are paying for it now. We are feeling the brunt of ex hurricane Kate… the first storm of the season to hit us and the Met Office have named this storm Abigail. We have had torrential rain and gale force winds for the past two days. In places six to eight inches (15-20 cm ) of rain fell in 24 hours. That’s more than a month of rain… a heck of a lot of extra water. Trees have fallen and there is flooding in some low lying areas.
I can’t express the shock and sorrow that we are feeling so instead here’s a quote from Ghandi. He was right of course. Tyrants and murderers never reign for long.
Keen garden bloggers have been chatting for the past few weeks about the strangely mild autumn we have had so far. Although it’s nice to be able to get outside without coats there has been an underlying current of concern. What effect will these high temperatures have on our garden plants and the creatures who depend on them for food and habitat?
A press release by the RHS indicates that we are right to be worried about environmental changes affecting our planet. We all know that populations of plants and animals are in decline to such an extent that some are in danger of becoming extinct.