Another

This one is Penstemon 'Strawberry Fancy'. Modern penstemons are bred to be freer flowering than the traditional varieties, though some of the old are hard to beat.

Penstemons

We have a number still in flower - they start in July. Dead-heading helps but usually we don't have time. This one has lost its label, but I hope to have a name in 24 hours! Well, 5 minutes anyway, it is 'Purple Bedder'.  A few more over the next couple of days.

Waiting for winter

Here are six or seven fuchsias, out of their pots and in bubble-wrap, sitting in the greenhouse waiting for winter frosts. In March, when they start shooting, cuttings can be made and the originals potted up again. I use a long strip of bubble-wrap which I wind round and round.  |In a normal year, the leaves would be gone by now.

Cobaea scandens

Getting a bit tatty now, and soon to be killed by frost, a couple of late-surviving flowers from the climber Cobaea scandens

One I missed

Suddenly spotted this high in a tree: Clematis Cirrhosa 'Freckles'. I needed a ladder for the photograph.

Boxing Day

A Banksian Rose, named after Joseph Banks the botanist who went to Australia. Flowers in June, and this Christmas by special dispensation

The first daffodil

To start us off on Christmas Day, the first daffodil of the year (not counting those forced in pots). Multi-headed too.