Autumn fruitfulness - and flowers!

Out in the garden yesterday clearing up mountains of fallen leaves - all very soggy, but so mild!!
Never before can I remember the fuschias being still out in their full glory in November at the same time as the fungi in the lawn! And even the fungi seem to be twice as big this year as usual. We have plenty of the beautiful Fly Agaric toadstool - often called the Mabel Lucie Atwell fungus, because it featured in many of her illustrations. But be careful - it's very poisonous. 
So I took a camera around to record all of this yesterday. Just look at the Azalea just come out - even that is twice its usual size! And the Iris seed heads with their gorgeous red seeds are in abnormally super abundance. If old wives' tales have anything in them, this is going to be a very hard winter again. Poor birds!

That Chelsea Chop - and Red Hot Pokers

I visited a beautiful garden yesterday and saw these wonderful Red Hot Pokers.







And this is what happens to Sedum plants when they are not given the Chelsea chop!!

Fuschias and Sedum

I love Fuschias. To me they always appear to be perfect wax models, and they come I so many shapes, sizes, colours. And many are hardy. My really tough ones (the red ones below) even survived last winter and this year's drought. I have several bushes that are just in front of my kitchen window so they make a magnificent display at this time of year. And the bees also love them.



And they are really so easy to look after. Every spring I simply cut them down quite hard, as the flowers all appear on the year's new branches, so it is very easy to keep them as compact and shapely as you want.

There are also many varieties available now that are superb in hanging baskets.

Yesterday I spoke of the Chelsea Chop on my Sedums, and feared I had been a little too over enthusiastic this year with the secateurs. Their flowering has certainly been delayed perhaps longer than I intended, but you can see here that the flowers are now beginning to open, and they will make a super display very soon. Because of the "chop" they will not splay out from the middle as Sedum plants otherwise have a tendency to do, keeping them neat and compact in the border. do And again, the bees love them, so a bonus for biodiversity.

Poppies

I have plenty of these on my allotment and they are a very pretty sight. Now of course they are over, and there are plenty of dried seed heads full of the tiny seeds. These seeds can be sprinkled on bread, cakes and biscuits to give a wonderful nutty flavour.

They can also, it is said, be added to curry powder for texture, flavour and as a thickener, although I have not as yet tried this.

The ancient Egyptians valued poppy seeds in their baking and the Romans looked on the poppy as sacred to Ceres, the corn goddess, who taught men to sow and reap.