Friday October 01, 2004

The rear of the house ( cont)

In my indecent haste to write up my blog last night I forgot some of my star plants.

In the greenhouse I have a nectarine. It is meant to produce fruit; I get flowers, I fertilise them with a brush they develop into marble sized fruit then drop off. Unless I can fix this I am afraid the nectarine bush is heading to the dump to by recycled..

Back on the paving slabs I have three chilli plants. At this time of the year I have to put them in the greenhouse as nights here are getting cold. I leave the plants in the greenhouse until it is getting really cold when they start to suffer a bit as I only keep the greenhouse frost free by a few degrees. It is usually long enough for more of the chillis to turn red and the smaller ones to grow a bit larger. I will grow new ones from seed next year

I love bizzie lizzie plants. A modern town I drive through has a row of large tubs on the centre of a dual carriageway. They are wonderful. I have a smaller tub full of them and although they are past their best they produced some wonderful blooms this year.

Finally this year I cracked growing morning glory. It it as its name suggests produces flowers that open in the morning and close in the evening. The plant is a relative of bindweed. The trick was to bring them on in the house and not put them out until those chilly evenings had really gone away. I am saving the seed for next year and they are really done now but they scrambled wonderfully all over the pergola once they reached the top.