You can’t beat an Indian summer for pure pleasure. Blue sky puts a smile on all but the most miserable curmudgeon’s chops, and the warm sun invites you to bask like a lizard, but, should you wish to work outdoors instead, it lacks the intense heat that can wipe you out on a high summer’s day.
My honeybees are loving it but, despite a good number of species still blooming in the garden, and ivy flowering in the wild, it is too late in the season for them to collect sufficient nectar for their winter needs. I fed them generously with sugar syrup last week, but unlike previous years when I have added ten percent by volume of honey, this year I could only give them syrup with a few drops of chamomile tea to make it more digestible.
A more positive result of the wash-out summer, many species that would normally have finished flowering in the ornamental garden are still going strong. So agapanthus, usually waving bunches of fat, green seed pods by now, are still bright blue and beautiful, and Lavender ‘Hidcote’, surprisingly chirpy considering the wet year, still weaves a purple ribbon along the edge of the lawn.
Yet the Michaelmas daisies, autumn stalwarts, are out. I used to hate them, but now wonder why, as Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’ is so resoundingly cheerful - good purple-blue petals ray out from golden centres. Its show lasts for many weeks, it is mildew resistant and unlike many of its brethren, it doesn’t even need staking.
And Amaryllis belladonna knows that autumn is here, extending strong stems two foot tall before opening glamorous, pink lily trumpets. A South African bulb, very particular in its requirements, I had assumed that the wet year would put it off flowering, but it seems to like the microclimate at the base of a south-facing wall under the overhang of the thatch, and appears to be so busy celebrating the demise of a passion flower that used to encroach on its space, it obviously forgot to notice the damp squab.
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