Articles for the Month of October 2024

Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day October 2024

Dahlia ‘Mai Tai’

Well it’s another month of flowers and I am very reminded by GBBD that accounting for the flowers in bloom during October brings the dahlias very much front and center.  Each year we think we will more carefully label and support the dahlias and each year we have them sprawled all over a row in the vegetable garden with no support at all.  Nevertheless we pick and enjoy the flowers and swear will do better by them next year.  They are certainly worthwhile.

Dahlia ‘Taboo’

Dahlia ‘Maui’

Dahlia ‘Excentric’

Dahlia ‘Pooh’

Dahlia ‘Picasso’

Dahlia ‘Garbrielle Marie’

You can see the use of these dahlias in the center of our new kitchen.

Dahlias in the new kitchen

Next to the Dahlias we always have a sequence of gladiolia in the garden.

Gladiolus ‘Black Cherry’

Of course there are many other flowers in the garden for fall, especially some of the annuals.

Tithonia ‘Mexican Sunflower’

Nasturtium

And some of the reliable perennials

Toadlily (Trycyrtis ‘Sinonome’)

Crocus Rose

Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’

Cestrum ‘Orange Peel’

Crocus Fall -speciosus

But the other thing that happens in this season is that we begin to see the first of Camellias that will contribute to the yard for the next 6 months.

Camellia sasanqua ‘October Magic’

Camellia x ‘Survivor’

There are also a few greenhouse plants that worth sharing.

Nerine ‘Peppermint’

Nerine Zinkowski hybrid

Oxalis hirta ‘Gothenburg’

Plectranthus

And one last thing I wanted to mention.  We planted a Heptacodium two years ago and it flowered for the first time this Fall.  What was striking to me was not the flowers but the red leaf bracts which follow afterwards.  I can see how this is going to be lovely small tree.

Heptacodium miconioides ‘Temple of Bloom’