November - Trebah Gardens

 Jessica and I  and two little dogs went on an adventure yesterday . My camera was playing up so I didn't manage to get very many good spontaneous photos .
 So I put together a collage of pics and you can click to enlarge them if you like .

                         One of two beautiful Christmas Trees at Trebah  .
 We enjoyed a lovely lunch in the dog friendly zone of the restaurant ...I had ham salad and chutney in a huge brown roll and side salad for £4.95 and a glass of water and my friend had King Prawns and a hot chilli dip and delicious fat chips  and a cup of coffee ..er not sure how much it came to ..but we were both very pleased with our meals , which set us up nicely for the long walk down to the  beach .....and back . Actually there are so many lovely trees , shrubs and plants that we hardly noticed the steep walk back up hill . 
   We saw beautiful wild strawberries and ripe deep pink Lychee fruits which were falling all around us  . Primroses, Squirrels , Buzzards , Pigeons and Pterodactyls swooped overhead . We saw a Plesiosaur in the lake ...see if you can find him in the top photo ! :)
  Magnificent Bamboozles  and  sleepy Gunnera manicatas which had all been trimmed and each one with an upturned giant umbrella of a leaf to protect the crown from the frost , should we get any . Which reminds me ... I must wrap my outside tap !

The sun was setting through the Tree Ferns as we returned just as they were about to close . A very quick look at all the lovely Christmas goodies in the shop on our way out . ... you must go and see for yourself !
                                     We must go again soon !

Late November - Cosmos

                 Just showing off our beautiful Cosmos flowers today !

 It is 18th November and beginning to turn quite cold at night here in Mullion Cornwall . They are in a tub though and against a sunny South facing wall .
 They also have a piece of string tied around them to give them a bit of support .

             We will be growing more of these next year , they are so pretty .

   Keeping the flowers coming by dead heading them . The ones out in the ground have finished weeks ago .

Cactus walking , munching snails !

 First the good news..our little dog is home , doing fine and the tail is wagging again .
  Then the bad news..I,ve been noticing sluggy snail trails on some of  my cacti .

 What is going on here ? !! How can a snail walk over a prickly cactus ?
I couldn't find it either.so it has slithered on , walked about and then slithered off and away again !

         ..and then I noticed this !  It has walked on , slithered over the top of it and eaten out just the growing tips !  Now I,m really annoyed ! Can I find the little nuisance .... no ...it has gone and is probably in hiding..waiting to come back again later .
  It's not a very good idea  to eat my cacti Mr Snail ! Some of my cacti are hallucinogenic !
  O.k so I'll get a grip now ! I,ll have to put a couple of slug pellets into the pots .  This has really spoiled the look of the plant..it will probably put out lots of new shoots or pups now , which is wonderful that it can do that and it will take some time to recover ...but ...... I am so annoyed !

My Schlumbergeras are flowering !

                 Schlumbergeras flowering beginning of November 2017

 Just a quick one as we are waiting to hear from the vet to come and collect our poorly dog from the animal hospital over in Falmouth .
 I tried to do my embroidery but ... sigh ..I just can't concentrate on anything .
  It cheered me up to see that my Schlumbergeras are coming into bloom .
They,ve been outside all summer and I brought them back into the porch a few weeks ago before the bad weather .

                               They are so pretty and worth waiting for !

Ensete ventricosum " Maurelii "

 I finally dug up my big Ensete ventricosum "Maurelii "/ the Red Abyssinian Banana .
 It has been very happy on this North facing bank through the summer..but I know that it  just would not survive through the Winter here..I have tried .
 I,ve been going on about digging this up for weeks now and my friend gave me a gentle nudge to get on with it !  ( as you can see it was getting dark too ! ) and it is now up in the woodshed safe from the winter weather .
   I will get a bag of new compost to mulch over it's roots , but probably wont water it at all now, until next spring , unless it is looking particularly sad .
 This was an expensive plant and with a little care it can be planted out again early next Summer . This lovely Banana can get between 8-10ft high and 5-10ft wide ....but at some stage it will be too big for me to keep lifting . I have been taking pups from it and bringing them on , which will eventually replace it .
  Musa Basjoo is the most hardy one ,but mine are still too small to plant out yet .