What's in Bloom? October 2025

Spring is finally,  properly here. 

The days are much longer and the air and soil are warming up.  

Sunday just gone it reached 29 degrees Celsius. Which is a huge jump from our average day temperature of around 12 to 16. 

The garden looks so happy and we've got a whole new range of plants in full bloom. 

I grew 3 Clematis Montana Alba up and over our patio and they have never looked so good.  They took a while to really get going

First year they sleep

Second year they creep

Then they leap!

-a Clematis proverb

I love the simple, beauty of their flowers and the green roof cools the patio beautifully on our sporadic hot summer days. 

Also in the patio, the Wisteria Sinensis is in full flower, filling the air with the sweetest scent! This Wisteria is now about six years old and finally looks happy and settled. I look forward to having it ramble all around the outside of the patio.

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The Mediterranean Garden in October

Allium Purple Rain, has sprung to life. A bulb that emerges at the start of spring, takes months to bloom, first with lily-like strappy leaves, and finally the firework flower, the size of a tennis ball becomes a superstar of the Mediterranean Garden. I planted 8 bulbs, and got four flowers this year. 

From everywhere in the yard, the 'blue blob bush' catches your eye. The Californian Lilac, or Ceanothus Blue Pacific. This image has not been altered and is actually THIS blue. The bees adore it, and the plant itself is as tough as any. When we moved in, I hacked it down to the ground, and it grew right on back. I'm so glad it did. I keep it shaped and admire the blue all spring.

Also in blue, the Bearded Iris are opening, more and more everyday. 

We had mounds and mounds of the rhizomes growing along the fenceline and I have little by little, been digging them up and dividing them and replanting in swathes throughout the garden. They are, without doubt, the best example of 'right plant, right place' for our area. They ADORE scorching sun, and dry earth. They are not bothered in the slightest by frosts. And, it's taken me a long tie to realise this, they are strikingly beautiful. 

Less individually striking, but so important as filler plants, the dianthus, chives, lavender and bamboo iris.

A special mention must go to these lovely Aquilegia or Columbine or 'Granny's Bonnets', with beautiful large almost ginko leaves in giant mounds, they flower en masse, and if you didn't look closely, you may miss how stunning each flower is, almost orchid-like.