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Sometimes, Laziness pays.

Whilst I'm not the most tidy minded of people about the house, I am
normally quite finicky about making sure that my garden is neat and
will spend hours tidying and 'titivating' so that everything looks
'just right'.  This of course, entails the regular removal of dead
flowers, and seed heads in order to maintain floral displays for as
long as possible.  

This year, I never got round to removing the dead flower heads from
the pale scarlet 'ginger' - Hedychium spicatum growing in a north-east
facing border and have just noticed that the capsules within the seed
heads have split to reveal the most wonderful, brilliant red, glossy
berries which wh-masse, are as attractive as the original flowers.  I
have never thought of Hedychiums as potential 'berrying' plants
usually removing dead flowers together with a portion of stem in order
to encourage further growths to develop and flower.  My indolence a
month or so ago, has rewarded me with a lovely show of scarlet, floral
racemes intermingled with spikes of brilliant fruits that are so shiny
as to have the appearance of being varnished.

A very long, extremely mild autumn - despite thick cloud all day, it
is still 20C outside as night approaches and has yet to drop to below
14C at its coolest, has encouraged continued growth and flowering on
all of my plants including the Hedychium.  An 8ft tall, first year
Brugsmania aurea is a mass of flower with over 40, immense creamy
yellow trumpets which darken over a couple of days, to a light apricot
colour.  Into this, a new hybrid Maurandia - 'Red Dragon' has
clambered, long stems of waxy foliage and large, pale throated,
carmine tubular flowers, cascade down through the Brugsmania, creating
an immensely telling combination.

Winter should be starting to make its appearance, but so far only the
continued fall of the leaves of native, deciduous trees gives any real
indication of the lateness in the season.  Fuchsia fulgens, various
Fuchsia hybrids, Clematis, Passifloras coeruleo-racemosa, mollisima
and antioquiensis and Diascia patens all continue to clothe walls and
fences with a never-ending tapestry of colour which appears to improve
as the days shorten.  No, this is the oddest autumn that I can
remember..

David Poole
TORQUAY  U.K.
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