Blackberry and Apple

From time to time we 'swop' plants with our neighbour at the end.  We gave her strawberry plants; she gave us a Heuchera and a Campanula for the front border.  We tried our chitted surplus seed potatoes, but life got complicated and we took them back.  However, when she expressed an interest in our Delphiniums we were delighted to oblige.  My husband split a clump and potted them up and we took them over. 

We came home with a thornless blackberry plant purchased from a supermarket at an unspecified time before.  I was not expecting this.  It is tempting fate to announce that there is no spare room for any new plants.  We did have a half barrel/container from the surplus potatoes and two large stakes which were at either end of the blackcurrants along the wall.  It was time to consult our organic gardening books and we (meaning of course my husband) repositioned the stakes, constructed a frame, tied in the old growth and eased the one new shoot upright.

In years to come, and I hope that time is some way off yet, we may not tramp the hedgerows in our wellies as we do now visiting our preferred blackberrying spots - the bushes that catch the sun, the places under sheltering trees, the former field boundaries by the industrial estate.  We will harvest from our very own blackberry without ditches, nettles or thorns.  

Prairie Flowers

This season I added to my repertoire by germinating some free seeds passed on by my knitting buddies.  

The 'poached egg flower' (Limnanthes) originated in California and is supposed to be easy to grow.  In this year's wet and windy summer it took its time to get going but my husband sunk it as a centrepiece in a terracotta pot in the middle of a bedding out plant display and now in the September sunshine it is doing well.  Friends have warned me that it will spread if unchecked.

I thought I was going to have a success with Cosmos but I now realise that I have been over-kind.  The plants are tall with feathery attractive leaves but no flowers.  The friend who alerted me to Limnanthes explained that Cosmos thrives on poor light soils.  We have been feeding them liquid plant food.  We should have left well alone.  We noted an attractive border of white cosmos on a visit to Lytham.  Sandy soil explains a lot.

My third plant is Zinnia.  I did not expect this to do well, as again it is a North American plant which does not enjoy wet and windy weather.  But this time we were right to feed them and they are finally flowering in two pots under the eaves by our front porch.  Definitely one to try again.

As a postscript: every morning I look at my Ipomoea for evidence of flower buds.  These have started to appear within the last fortnight.  Will I see any purple flowers?  We are in a race between the last of the warm weather and the approaching autumn gales.