Rudbeckia flowers

Going, Going, Gone 3: Long Gone

Posted on by Ann Mackay

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Almost all of the autumn flowers here are gone. One or two remain. The hesperantha and gaura (posted here two weeks ago) still have a few flowers, and the dark flowers of Scabious ‘Chile Black’ keep coming well into the winter frosts. Others have only just finished for the year.

Many other flowers are now a more distant memory. The yellow flowers of the rudbeckia (top photo) have been gone for a few weeks, but for a long time they were their own little splash of autumn sunshine.

The red dahlia below is a lovely plant that was grown and given to me by my friend Barbara. It’s Dahlia variabilis ‘Bishop’s Children’. From seed, it can be anything in a range of reds, pinks, oranges and yellows, with deep red/bronze foliage. This one has survived several winters in the garden in its well-drained and sheltered spot. But as soon as the slightest touch of frost gets to it, the flowers stop. So one day you can have several red flowers looking radiant, and the next they’ve gone.

Dahlia 'Bishops Children'

Another splash of bright colour came from the New England aster in the photo below. (OK, I know I should call it Symphyotrichum, but ‘aster’ is so much easier!) I believe this one is ‘September Ruby’ (aka ‘Septemberrubin’). It’s a tall plant, covered in wonderfully pink daisies – usually about 4 ft. tall, but one year nearer 5ft. It’s glorious and one of the cheeriest sights of our garden in autumn.

These plants have finished for the year, but having their photographs gives me a reminder of warm late summer and autumn days. That’s something very welcome while it’s raining and the wind is stripping the leaves from the trees

Even now, though, there is a scattering of colour in the garden as the winter flowers start to appear. The winter jasmine is gleaming with delicate yellow stars and nearby a Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ is showing its tiny pink flowers. A mahonia bush now has yellow buds promising to open soon. As we approach the darker days of winter, these will give little touches of colour to cheer our hearts.

Aster flowers (Symphyotrichum)

Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

15 thoughts on “Going, Going, Gone 3: Long Gone”

    1. Certainly! This is just one of the colours that it can come up in – there’s a nice range and you never know what you’re going to get. I hope Bishop Jake likes it! 🙂

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      1. Jake said how gorgeous it is, and asked me to tell you how much he loves it! Thank you Ann 🙂 Maybe I should see if I can get that variety here, it’d be great fun to see the different colours!

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      2. I’m glad he liked it Liz! I think it’s a fairly common variety, so there must be a good chance of getting a packet of the seeds. I think I should try growing it from see sometime too – would be nice to have more dahlias!

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    1. Thank you Indira! We’ll have a quiet spell when there are only a few winter flowers left and it can be too cold to spend too much time outside. But every day spring is getting closer! 🙂

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    1. Thanks Syd! The winter jasmine and a viburnum bush have both started flowering, so we have a bit of yellow and pink. There will be more yellow soon, when the mahonia buds open and after these it will be time to start looking forward to the hellebores… 🙂

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    1. The colour has mostly disappeared over the last little while – but there’s still some yellow (winter jasmine) and pink (a viburnum bush) with more yellow coming soon…then I will have to wait for the hellebores… 🙂

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    1. I’m looking for more planting ideas for the winter – especially after hearing a bumblebee buzz past me while I was working in the garden today. Need to make sure there’s food for any that aren’t hibernating. 🙂

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