FIRST OF THE AUTUMN FLOWERS

Colchicum's or naked ladies' peeping through the soil is a sure sign that autumn is on the way. Early morning mists condensing on the spider webs and sparkling in the sunshine adds to the beauty of the garden at this time of the year. The first of the autumn flowering crocus has opened to display its orange red anthers to the midday sun.

Daphne tanguita is laden down with berries this year for reasons best known to itself. Although it flowers all summer, in the past it has only produces a spattering of berries, but not so this year. Daphne Carol Mackie has got a little confused and is sporting a nice head of flowers, it did nothing all year and now at this late stage has decided to flower. I bet it is going to kick up its heels and is trying to produce a few seed before it goes.

Daphnes have a habit of not producing much of a crop of berries and then one year the will be covered with seed and the next thing you know they are dead. Some sort of a survival strategy I presume.

The autumn Gentians are doing their usual thing and just to get in on the act Gentiana verna has decided to produce a few flowers before settling down for the winter.

The silver leafed Gazania, Talent yellow, is proving to be a magnificent plant. Not only has it got beautiful perennial and nicely lobed silver leaves, but for most of the summer and more so in the autumn, it is covered with large buttercup yellow flowers. I have grown Gazania's for years but none of them survived our wet winters outside until I tried this one.

Cyclamen are pushing up their propeller like flowers in all sorts of unusual places, and the white one under the Daphne Retusa is covering a space almost two feet square. There must be lots of tubers for I counted over two hundred flowers before getting confused and had to give up.

The Nerine bowdenii by the Escallonia hedge has over forty large flower buds although none of them are open yet, but Nerine filifolia has eight flowers opened, with bright pink wavy margined petals. This one is almost evergreen producing new grass like leaves as the old ones fade.