Nights drawing in

The sun is setting earlier now. It was dark at 9pm today, and the sunrise is later too. In September we will reach the point when day and night are of equal length. Then in October we will revert back to Greenwich mean time and lose an hour of daylight in the evening. Although we gain an hour on the morning I think it’s sad to get darknrss earlier just when you want to cling to brightness.

Why talk about this? I need to get a daylight bulb. I find if I paint in normal electric light the colours I use look different from in the daytime. They are often distorted, I find I can’t see yellow properly compared with white. I also think LED lights are a lot dimmer than the old 100 watt bulbs and you can’t get a bright enough equivalent. I want to be able to see colours properly so I can paint better.

Dug up!

Something keeps digging up bulbs in the garden, from pots we planted up last autumn. The bulbs have roots on them but haven’t grown yet, (unless they are having the leaves nibbled).

I’ve replanted them a few times, but something comes back and pulls them up again. Not plants, just bulbs? Hubby thinks it’s a fox doing it. I think it’s a squirrel. Has anyone got an idea? The bulbs are in pots on the ground, not up on the wall where some of the other pots are. It seems to just happen at night. Could it be hedgehogs trying to find worms. We might start leaving cat food out for hedgehogs again.

Crocosmia Lucifer

I’m watching Gardeners World on BBC TV. They arr showing a compilation programme of the best bits from 2020. One section was about the crocosmia plants that you grow in the garden and the fact that their anticedants came from South Africa.

My garden has crocosmia Lucifer growing in it in the late summer, but its several years old now and I think it’s time to get new bulbs so I’ve painted this to remind myself to get some more..

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More plants

Plants in a box

Ivy leaf pelagoniums and a gazenia (not sure of spelling). We saw them for sale at a florists in Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme today. I decided to get them as the weather is changing and I want to extend the flowering season in the garden. We also got some cyclamen including normal ones, and some called petticoat cyclamen which are more splayed out than the original type. I picked up a red sedum too.

It’s heading towards autumn now. I noted a tinge of broken or red on some of the trees as we were driving over to Wolstanton. It will be here soon. The nights are drawing in too.

When we got home I popped to the shops. While I was there I was tempted and grabbed a box of mixed tulip bulbs, and another one of various small flower bulbs. Gardening is a wonderful occupation. Try it if you can.

Missing Walsall illuminations.

I remember Walsall illuminations over the years. We went most years as children, it was always wonderful to wander through the Arboretum, a huge park in Walsall. The lights as we called them usually ran from September and the leaves that were starting to change, were lit with coloured lights, some of the light displays were brought in from Blackpool. The beauty was that you could walk through the park, eventually coming out by the boating lake where you could see a spectacular light show, especially in later years when they used lasers and fountains. Part of the charm was that they kept some of the tableau for years. Like the clock family. These were clock shaped with legs and arms and the hour and minute hands formed the faces. They were fibre glass and painted bright colours. With bulbs placed in them to light them. There was always a fair on in the park so children could go on the rides and have candy floss. It’s ten years since ‘cost cutting’ closed them down. So sad……

Amaryllis

IMG_20200302_112003_579_optimizedIt’s flowered. My Amaryllis is in flower. Bright red trumpets. Three big flowers. 

There are two other plants, they have leaves, but no flowers.  I hope they might still send up long stems with buds. I’m watering them, but it might not be till next year, then perhaps they will flower. Amaryllis like to be tightly packed into their pots, and so I don’t re-pot them until they have started to outgrow their pots. The one that is flowering is over ten years old. It was a Christmas present from my mother. It has a second bulb growing next to it, and when that gets large enough I may try and dislodge it and grow it in a new pot.

I do think they have possibly been overfed this year. When I have fed my orchids I have given any spare water with food in it, to the amaryllis plants. Usually I don’t bother to feed them. They do seem to have put on a lot of leaves so perhaps that is why they are not flowering as well as normal.

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Amaryllis

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I have 4 Amaryllis flowers growing this year. The bulb sends out a long shoot after it starts to grow leaves. This flower spike will grow rapidly as long as it gets plenty of water. There can usually be 1 to 4 flower buds. All my Amaryllis plants have deep red flowers but they do come in other colours.

We got another plant in a deep glass vase which was in flower. Now the flower stem has gone over (died back) but its putting out leaves. I have two more plants that I have kept for years. One still has a long leaf on it from last year. Both are responding to being watered by starting to come into leaf again.

A tip, Amaryllis go dormant for a while from autumn. You need to start watering again mid winter to get them to start to grow. If you need to repot them only go up one size. They like to be quite tight in their pots. Use a good house compost, maybe a bit sandy to stop them getting waterlogged. Then sit back and enjoy the amazing flowers.