This weather is bananas
Talking of which, you should see my banana plants. As far as they're concerned, they're having a second summer, and spreading out their huge propellor leaves in the sun; they get larger by the day. The Convolvulus sabatius is going crackers; confined to a small pot, it never produced as many flowers as this in summer.
When I went on holiday at the start of September, I had mentally confined the pelargoniums on the wall to the compost bin, because I knew the cat carer would never water them, and I'd return to find near-dead plants. In fact I did, and hadn't bothered to resurrect them.
However last Friday, when the weather perked up, so did they - after a trim back, water and feed. Now they are flowering their heads off (pictured, above): how long will they carry on like this?
For the first year ever, the winter-flowering pansies and autumn chrysanthemums are blooming alongside cannas, pelargoniums and petunias (above). So there's a veritable melee of seasonal mellow fruitfulness going on alongside the decidedly non-seasonal Mediterranean blooms.
As I write, the pumpkins are drying out in the sun (right) at the same time as the strawberries are flowering and fruiting all over again. Confused? You bet they are, and they're not the only ones.
Usually, at this time of year I'm ruthlessly ripping out the summer bedding and settling in the winter charges; out with the old, in with the new, not least because I'm keen to try new container combos.
Exceptionally, I've decided to make hay while the sun shines, even if that disrupts the colour scheme (summer had lots of blues and lilacs; autumn's scheme is all rusts and burgundies) and plant what autumn bedding I have alongside the old. The result is bold, bright and I feel I have the best of all seasons. Long may it last - even if it's just for a few more weeks.
There are dilemmas, though. I can't plant some of my spring-flowering bulbs till I've freed up the containers to plant them in, so I've dug up the cascades of blue lobelia in one pot and added them to another, so I can plant a bowlful of hyacinths, at least. Which is how orange winter-flowering pansies peek out alongside the blue lobelia, looking pretty if a bit incongruous. In these uncertain days of global warming, we gardeners have to be adaptable.
