Category: flower photography

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Winter has asserted itself forcefully over most of the UK. In the last week or so, heavy snow and a damaging storm caused problems over other areas of the country. Here we have been more fortunate and have pretty much escaped both. Our light sprinkling of snow has now melted away, to be replaced by heavy rain and the promise of sleet.

Even the frosts of the previous days had little impact here. Although the ground was completely frozen, the frost itself affected only the grass and low-lying leaves, with none appearing on the upper parts of plants. So there was little of interest to photograph, which is unusual for frosty mornings here. However, that did allow me to stay indoors and keep warm rather than trying to navigate the slippery paths and ground outside. The time wasn’t wasted because I spent it catching up with processing a few older winter photographs.

The pictures here show seed heads photographed in winters when we’ve had a bit more frost. I usually leave some seed heads standing, hoping that they will become covered in icy crystals and provide me with something to photograph. (I don’t tidy up much in the autumn anyway, because I know that there will be many ladybirds, and possibly other insects, hibernating in the undergrowth.)

The top photo shows the seed head of a hardy agapanthus which is able to survive outside in a garden border, rather than having to be kept in a pot and overwintered in a greenhouse. It is one of my favourite seed heads to photograph. The seed head below is betony (Betonica officinalis), which I was lucky enough to be able to photograph before it had completely dried out and lost its colour. (We must have had an early frost that year.)❄

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It’s too cold at the moment to spend much time out in the garden. That means I’m taking it easy indoors, looking through last summer’s photos. Seeing images of plants from other people’s gardens gives me ideas for my own.

Seeing this pretty cosmos makes me realise how much I missed having them in my own garden last year. I love the way the delicate flowers float above the feathery leaves and the fact that they can last right up until the first frosts here. These lovely annuals bring a bit of variety to my garden and fit in well with the other permanent plants.

Growing annuals from seed may prove difficult this year, though, because I’m likely to be away from home at times during the spring…perhaps I will have to look out for some plug plants. Deciding when to take time away from home is tricky if you’re a gardener and have seedlings and potted plants to care for. Luckily there is still plenty of time for making decisions! 🌼

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The flowers of autumn will soon be a memory. There are still some around but most are are gradually ebbing away and there will soon be very few left to photograph.

My photo files are full of reminders of the flowers that I’ve seen this year. The photos of the two pink flowers here stood out among the more recent ones because of their vivid pink. It’s easy to think of pink as being delicate and soft, but these two are as boldly-coloured as any of the red or orange flowers of late summer. The echinacea in the top photo is a particularly strong shade and brighter than the more dusky pink echinaceas that I’ve had in my own garden.

Sadly there have been no established echinacea plants in my garden this year. The red one that lit up summertime for the last few years has at last petered out, but there are a couple of tiny seedlings. (Echinaceas are short-lived, but do carry on by self-seeding.) Other echinaceas in a mix of orange and pink shades didn’t last quite as long as the red one, but I’ve seen the odd seedling that has managed to produce a flower…hopefully they’ll survive and become bigger plants in future.

The Japanese anemone below is attractive, but not something I’m looking to plant here. I already have two other pink Japanese anemones that are being very greedy for space, so best not to risk another! I’ll be happy to just admire it in other people’s gardens. But, while I’m unlikely to choose this anemone, I’d be very happy to grow the vibrantly pink echinacea. It’s very pink and it’s fabulous!

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Plants in the Asteraceae family bring charm and loveliness to late summer and autumn. Amongst those plants, asters (also known as Michaelmas daisies) are especially valued for their late flowering, as are other daisy-like flowers in this family. I like the thought that ‘aster’ means ‘star’ in both Latin and ancient Greek; for me the composite flowers of the Asteraceae are, indeed, stars of the garden.

The aster in the top photo appeals to me due to its dramatically dark purple, and I’ve looked around to see if I can buy something like it for my own garden. I haven’t found one yet, but last year I planted my favourite aster, the lavender-blue flowered ‘Monch’. (The photo below is not my own plant though, but one photographed at Fullers Mill, as the are the others here.)

There are a number of asters in my own garden now, mostly in purply-blue shades, but some pinks and white too. They keep the colour going when other flowers have finished and give a feeling of continuing life to the garden. Anything that helps to hold off the gathering greys of approaching winter is very welcome here!

I’d like to plant more late-flowering members of the Asteraceae, perhaps the dainty flower pictured below. I believe it’s probably Bidens heterophylla aurea. (Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’ looks very similar, but appears to have slightly narrower petals. It is also a shorter and more compact plant.) This bidens (AKA Arizona beggarticks) has long, graceful stems that give the plant an airy feel, like gaura or Verbena bonariensis. This should make it easy to combine with other plants. I think it could be lovely with a delicate, wispy grass such as Stipa tenuissima (Mexican feather grass).

Some of the autumn-flowering Asteraceae are a bit less obviously daisy-like in appearance, like the dahlia below. However, you can easily see the family likeness in that centre made up of tiny individual ‘disc florets’, surrounded by the showier ‘ray florets’ (which we think of as petals). Rudbeckias, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, cosmos and zinnias are some of the varied members of this large family that can keep flowering when other plants have finished for the year. (You can see some of my previous photos of late-flowering Asteraceae in these posts: heleniums, cosmos, and zinnias. The Asteraceae bring beauty to our gardens in late summer and autumn and they’re all sparkling stars to me.

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Japanese anemones tend to go a bit mad here. They have lovely flowers that grace the late summer and autumn garden. But they can spread – oh, how they can spread! So it’s probably not a good idea for me to fall in love with the anemone that you see here.

This is one of the ‘Swan’ series of anemones, which began with the single-flowered ‘Wild Swan’. This first plant was immensely popular, becoming the RHS Chelsea Flower Show plant of the year for 2011. Since then, further cultivars have been grown in the ‘Swan’ family, and I think the plant here is likely to be the semi-double ‘Ruffled Swan’.

Ruffled Swan is a taller and more vigorous cultivar than Wild Swan, so might be inclined to try to take over my garden, just as the pink Japanese anemones ‘September Charm’ and ‘Hadspen Abundance’ do. For years I’ve been trying to keep these two under control, which works for a while until some pops up somewhere where it’s not wanted. (Hadspen Abundance was in the garden when we came and I was pleased to see it. That was before I knew that some Japanese anemones want to rule the world! And I brought a pot of September Charm from my old garden, where it had quietly sat in a small clump before running amok here.)

So, despite its beauty, I won’t be looking to buy this particular plant for the garden. I see that there are, however, some smaller cultivars with the same attractive violet-blue reverse to the petals. The most compact is said to be ‘Elfin Swan’, which would probably grow well in a container. It’s a ‘definite maybe’, but first of all I need to see if I can move some of the larger pink anemones into big pots. (I notice that the dry weather has made these much less vigorous this year, so maybe this is my chance to end their takeover of my garden!) 🌼

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The colchicums (autumn crocuses) that I’m familiar with are those that are pink with a white throat. I’ve seen them here and there in other gardens and even tried growing them here. They’re not uncommon. But these white colchicums are something that I haven’t seen before.

These are part of the large collection of Colchicum autumnale growing in Fullers Mill Garden. (I posted photos of a pink and white variety that grows there a couple of weeks ago. You can see them here.)

Whilst the pink and white ones are very pretty, there’s a startling purity to these white flowers that feels unusual when surrounded by the glowing reds, oranges and yellows of many autumn flowers. The white, especially when combined with nearby green, gives a freshness and a feeling of cool and calm that is especially welcome after the blaze of summer heat.

Colchicum autumnale is sometimes called ‘meadow saffron’, but the whole plant is highly toxic and should not be mistaken for the source of the spice saffron. (Saffron actually comes from the saffron crocus, Crocus sativus, an entirely unrelated plant. Somewhat confusingly, this crocus also blooms in autumn.) It may be best to stick with calling these flowers either the commonly used ‘autumn crocuses’, or perhaps the more amusing ‘naked ladies’ (so-called because the flowers appear long before the leaves). It might get a few startled looks if you’re able to tell folk that your garden is full of naked ladies…

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The flowers of this bright red Hesperantha coccinea ‘Major’ (AKA crimson flag lily or river lily) are bright enough to rival the glow of other late summer flowers. They can easily compete with Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, the heleniums, bright red kniphofia and ginger lilies from some of my recent posts.

While this hesperantha’s colour is rich and glowing, its flower has great elegance too. The simple curving shapes of the petals and the way the flowers are held on the long stems give the plant a graceful air. The detail that perfects it for me is the long style that divides into three and overlaps the petal edges. (The style is the female part of the flower’s anatomy that connects the pollen receptor to the ovary.)

I love the look of these flowers, but have found it difficult to keep this plant going in my own garden. The dry soil here isn’t suitable for them, as you’d guess from the ‘river lily’ name, and my attempts to keep them watered haven’t been enough. Hesperantha prefers damp soil, but the roots might rot if I tried planting it in the pond.

It would be good to find a suitable place to grow these…perhaps in their own little bog garden. (The bog garden I made a few years ago has now filled up with Siberian irises, so not much space there.) The beauty of these flowers, which can last until the first frosts, would make the extra effort to create a second bog garden worthwhile. It would have to be a very small bog garden though!