Wednesday 18 November 2009

Autumn in all its glory - but some plants really should know better!

I was going to do a post about the next stage of tea house building, but that involved my wonderful father-in-law, David, and I was finding it incredibly difficult to write about him as he is currently in hospital after (planned) major surgery - but thankfully out of ITU now and the post wouldn't come together........... so I decided to try out my posh new camera instead and went off for a pootle round the garden in the few minutes when there wasn't a howling gale or horizontal rain!
(for those who are interested my new camera is a Canon IXUS 95 IS and it replaced my old camera which had given up the ghost due to eating too much soil!)

So, on my travels round my back garden, I found.......(this feels a bit like the childrens game of 'I went to market and I bought...'!)

My Fuschia bush blooming away merrily.


Some poppies from that mountaineous region which includes Nepal, but which I can't spell correctly tonight!


Sedum, still flowering profusely.


The Cyclamen haven't stopped flowering since I planted them about 2 months ago.


The Quince has fruited well this year .... if only I liked the taste of them!


This tree has a magnificent crop of berries, but no-one seems to know what the tree is - so if anyone could enlighten me, I'd be very grateful!


The Copper Beech has been quite glorious, but I'm still waiting for the oak (far right) to give up the rest of its leaves ..........it took me about 4 hours to get the lawn to this state and one windy evening to cover it in leaves again!

Just a few of the oak leaves I cleared up.
Don't you just love my sassy wellies?!


The Hydrangea was blue when it first came out, but has gone through purple to red and is drying off nicely and will soon be ready to take indoors for a bit of colour in my hallway.


I found these hidden under the leaves on the border - they are HUGE. Unfortunately I have NO idea whether they are edible or not ....... so I left them there!


A spectacular Pyracantha berry crop.


My Buddha nestling in amongst the leaves and bamboo in the Japanese garden.


As well as changing my camera, I've also changed how I load the photos. Please could you let me know if you think this is quicker or slower than on previous posts. Thank you!

32 comments:

Liz said...

Hi Liz!

Sorry to hear about your camera, however it must be great fun playing with a new camera :)

Btw, could your mystery tree be 'crab apple red sentinel'? (a tree I had planned to get myself as the birds love it)

Lovely to see you still have so much flowering, I love the sedum and must get that type myself!

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

It does look very pretty there. Sounds like you are having the same weather as us. Wind and rain and it does make trying to rake difficult when the piles keep getting blown around. I've seen orange poppies blooming around here and was surprised to see them, maybe they are the same that you have. Your pictures looks great and loaded quickly for me.
Hope your father-in-law is feeling better.

D said...

Liz, congratulations on the new camera! I had to break down and purchase a new one also when mine went kaput.

Still beautiful color in your garden! Happy to hear your father-in-law is coming along. ;)

Phoenix C. said...

Beautiful photos! Your garden looks lovely. There is much raking of leaves here also! Very soggy leaves ...

Shady Gardener said...

Liz, I love it when you Pootle around in your yard! :-)

Your new camera takes great photos (due to you) and when you size them smaller, they open quickly when I click on them.

I'm glad your father-in-law is recouperating well.. Hope you're up to posting about your tea house soon.

LeSan said...

Glad to hear the family will be intact again soon. Silly father-in-laws going around scaring the dickens out of decent people like yourselves. I am glad to hear he is doing well.
That poppy should definitely know better!
How are you loading the photos differently? I never noticed a slow load before but I do notice what a pain it is to load on Blogger. I wish they had some multi load option. Do they??

Thomas said...

Quince! I love how the fruit seem to cascade down the tree. Beautiful! They are a great color too! What are you gonna go with them?

Monica the Garden Faerie said...

Hi Liz, I *do* love your sassy boots, and I love Pyracantha (esp. those with orange berries). Alas, I also love quince, esp. in jam. Nom nom nom.

Nutty Gnome said...

Hi everyone and thank you for your good wishes about my father-in-law. He's now on an ordinary vascular ward, sitting out of bed for part of the day and working with the physios. He's also complaining about being bored - so he's definately on the mend! Hopefully he should be home by the middle of next week :)

Hi Liz - I suspect too much time spent in the grubby pocket of my body warmer combined with dropping it once or twice finally did for my old camera, but I'm loving my new one! :)
Crab apple 'red sentinel', hmmm, hadn't thought of that! I'll check it out .... the birds certainly love it that's for sure.
You're very welcome to pop over and check out the garden - and get a sedum or two if you like :)

Catherine - hi! I am now officially fed up of the wind! I've just spent ALL day working outside (in a sort of covered area) teaching tai chi and wobbling a lot because of the wind!!!
I built a new leaf pound at the weekend, but haven't been able to catch the leaves to put in it yet! :)

Hi Di - yes, I was suprised how much colour there was once I started looking.... and there are still some photos I've not posted of other plants.

Phoenix C - hi. Aaargh, soggy leaves ... my drive is covered in them! I'm going to have to get them cleared up this weekend as they're starting to get slippery and dangerous. Trouble is, our drive is about 150m long in total.......! :(

Hi Shady - I'm glad you like the photos. It's quite strange getting used to a new camera, but I am pleased with the results! I'm pleased to hear that they're loading quickly too - thanks :)

Hi LeSan - I have to confess that we all felt immensely relieved once he was out of ITU, but it was a bit of a tottering time for everyone even though it was planned!
Previously I'd been loading the photos onto Picnik photo editor and making them smaller/cropping them etc, but it was SUCH a faff - even slower than loading onto blogger (which I then had to do as well!), so I've mostly given up on picnik and edited in paintshop pro before loading them. I hate that I can only load 5 photos onto blogger at a time and it takes ages for each set to load! :P

Hi Thomas. Our quince seems to be more of a bush/horizontal variety - or maybe it's just too lazy to grow tall! They are a gorgeous colour, but I won't be doing anything with them as none of us like the taste .... do you want a few for canning?!

Hi Monica - my wellies are great - they are definately happy boots ... I can't help but smile when I put them on!
The Pyracantha have been superb this year. Do you want a few quince too?! :)

joey said...

Good news that your father-in-law is on the mend, Nutty :) I'm very impressed with your mid-November parade of color and your new camera ...your Copper Beech is indeed glorious! (I have designs on your sassy wellies :)

nilla|utanpunkt said...

Amazing display of colours in your garden. New camera is doing a good job (as well as the photographer, obviously :-). And those wellies, hon, what can I say, so smart.

Gordon Mason said...

Definitely faster! And your garden looks pretty good. How big is Nutty Acres?

O.I.M said...

november looks great at your place. I have never liked november but have to admit it has been exceptional this year...lots of sunshine and great fall colours.
irena

Bhavesh Chhatbar said...

I hope he's OK now. Guess, these beautiful flowers are for him to recover quick! :)

Your wellies are wonderful :)

Looks your new camera is great at performance!! What's your call. One of my friends in NJ wants to buy a good pocket-sized camera.

Have a nice day!!!

Long-tailed Shrike

Anonymous said...

I have a slow internet connection and did seem like your site loaded fairly fast in relationship to how many pictures you were displaying.

You certainly have many wonderful colours and textures surrounding you at this time of year. And the buddha with only its head showing perhaps symbolizing That you are a wonderous witness to the true Nature that surrounds us.

And then there is the new camera, which symbolizes a whole new way of perceiving and digesting the life and the energy that surrounds you. Happy Days...........

Oh and then there is your new way of lightening and quickning your upload and download speed. Good signs everywhere.

Pondside said...

Your November garden is definitely a lot more colourful than mine! I spent the morning transplanting shrubs and planting trees. The ground is nice and moist after days and days of rain, so it was an easy job. When you find out what that lovely berried bush is, please let us know.

F Cameron said...

Glad to hear that your father-in-law is on the mend. I hope all continues to progress smoothly and recovery is quick.

Your photos are all so beautiful! You still have so much going on in the garden.

Cameron

Shirley Landis VanScoyk said...

hey, Gnome! Form across the pond - are you in the flood? Thinking about all my English friends...

Nutty Gnome said...

Hi everyone and thank you all for yor good wishes for David's speedy recovery! He is now home (a bit early due to one patient with the C-Diff' superbug being admitted onto the ward. As my in-laws are both senior medics, David was deemed capable of being nursed at home, rather than risk him catching the bug). We visited yesterday. He came downstairs for lunch and for tea and, although tired and in some discomfort still, is exactly where he should be at this stage post-op. Another 7-10 days and he'll feel like a new man!

Joey - the wellies are a UK size 3 ....any good?! I got them from the children's department :)

Camellia - thanks for the kind words about my photography. Doing the blog has certainly focused my mind on what and how to take better photos!

Hi Woody. Nutty Acres is exactly that - one acre! I have to consider it in project-sized chunks or I get a bit freaked about about how much there is to do in it!!! Comments on your DVD will be coming to you via email very shortly!

Irena -I don't normally like November very much either as it signals the start of my 'cold' period but Autumn here has been unusually warm this year. Overall, the weather conditions all year have produced fantastic berries and colours for us to admire!

Bhavesh, hi - thanks! My camera is a Canon Digital IXUS 95 IS. I'm really impressed with it - it's small but solidly built, has a wide range of settings including macro, sport, nighttime, kids and animals etc, etc. I'd certainly recommend it to your friend :)

Hi Bernie - I hadn't really thought about the symbology like that before, but lots of positive things do seem to be happening around me right now ....happy days indeed!

Pondside - I know what you mean about moist soil - but mine has a rather more 'quagmire' feel to it at the moment! The tree could be a crab apple 'red sentinel' ... but I've not had time to check it out yet, so I'll get beck to you on that one:)

Hi Cameron - yes, I'm amazed at the amount of stuff that is still flowering .... I've got some roses in bloom on the front terrace even as I write! Strange really - you'd think they'd know better round here!

Hi Shirley - thanks for your concern. Luckily we're well away from the floods - they're in the west coast/ Lake District area of England, just below the Scottish border. We're just to the east of the centre of England and live at the top of a hill! Chesterfield and our surrounding area had some very bad flooding in the valleys about 4 years ago, but we were fine - most, if not all, of Chesterfield would have to be completely submerged for us to even get our toes wet. It has been just awful for the people who are affected though and my heart goes out to them.

Thomas said...

HA! Maybe I'll hop on a quick flight to her majesty's land to can them for you! Quince jelly? Sound yummy to me!

Tootsie said...

beautiful photos...of a beautiful garden!

Nutty Gnome said...

Thomas - get on that plane!!!

Tootsie - thank you! We've still got a LONG way to go to get the garden we want out of the one we inherited from the previous owners ....... but I have plans!!!

Rob (ourfrenchgarden) said...

Hi Liz

I hope David makes a good and speedy recovery.

You have so much in bloom. Over here and everythings gone. We had some frost back end of October and it cut everything down. It seems a little strange since November has been so mild. The thermometer touched 19 degrees today and has been up to 21 now and then this month.

I think quince looks great. You should try making a quince cheese (like the spanish membrillo) and eat it with the strongest, stinkiest cheese you can get your hands on. It works, oh and wash it all down with lashings of red wine.

I'm afraid I'm no help with the berry tree; sorry.

Your blog loaded just fine for me by the way,

Again, I hope all goes well for David, regards to you and yours

Rob

Pat said...

Thank goodness you got a new camera !!
Great pics...all loads much faster but then again I got a new computer.
So nice to see your yard :)

Nutty Gnome said...

Hi Rob - thanks for that. I've just had a long chat with David and he is sounding so much better and stronger than he did when we saw him at the weekend, so I feel better now too!

We haven't had any frost here yet, but it's forecast snow on the tops for the weekend .... looks like it'll be a layer of thermals before we work outside then!

I love the look of quince and they're a great colour at this time of year. I'm intrigued by the idea of quince cheese, so I'm going to look up a recipe and give it a go - and if I don't like it, well I'll just have to use the red wine to get rid of the taste!!!

Take care of yourself and give our regards to Karen.

Hi Patsi. I'd got so used to having my camera with me that I felt so lost without it I just had to replace it rather than wait for Santa to bring me a new one!!!

Everyone seems to be in agreement that the pictures are loading faster, so that's good.

I'm glad you like the garden - I'd love to post an aerial view so that the layout made sense for people, but the google shot is about 3 years old and a lot has changed since it was taken so it wouldn't really help much! :)

Shady Gardener said...

Nutty Gnome, I'm leaving one more little comment here. I would like you to visit me tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon for a moment. I want you to read a little something... :-)

Olive Tree said...

Hi, it's a very great blog.
I could tell how much efforts you've taken on it.
Keep doing!

Nutty Gnome said...

Hello OTGE and welcome. Thank you for your kind words - and for following my blog. I'm really glad that you like what I'm doing :)

Unknown said...

What a unique treasure! I love it dirt and all!! It was nice going through your blog. keep it up the good work. Iflorist.co.uk

Nutty Gnome said...

Hi Beth - oh thank you, I'm glad you like it ....it is a bit of a treasure and we're hidden away from the road, so it makes it all the more special too!

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BilboWaggins said...

Liz, months late to the conversation, but as you know I'm working my way through your story.

I didn't notice anyone reply about your plant with berries. Could it be Cotoneaster cornubia? We had numerous growing here although about half have had to go, they are like weeds in our soil. Depending upon which book/website you read they can be '2m tall arching shrubs' or slender trees. Ours are 5 metre arching triffids but the birds adore the berries in winter.