Algarve Country Garden December 7th to 12th 2007

Weather has continued to be mainly sunny, although the temperatures are dropping at night. Sunday 9th. was cloudy with some drizzle, however since then the sun has been shining. I had an email from a friend in Canada, and whilst we we having temperatures of 20 degrees, they were having temperatures of minus 20 degrees, with 4 feet of snow. You see the Algarve does have it's benefits. Anyway average day-time temperatures here have been 18 degrees, and average night-time temperatures 10 degrees.

No unusual birds in the garden this week, just azure wing magpies, hoopoos, robin,blackbird and a passing group of redstarts.

The cooler weather is starting to have effect however,with some plants starting to die off. The tops of the Japanese blood grass (Imperata.cylindrica "Rubra") have died back at last and I have started to cut them down. Also the Angels hair (Stipa.tenuissima ) need thinning out. Both these grasses and the Festca .glauca have been very successful, the latter two reseeding themselves each year, and the former increasing by sending out underground runners.

The banana is also dying off, however it usually lasts until we get a frost. I took off the fruit recently, and will have to cut down the fruit bearing stalks. Because it is mainly ornamental I leave more stalks on the plants than I would if using them for fruit alone.

We still have quite a lot of colour in the garden, and things like Gazanias, amaze me with thier almost constant flowers. They also self seed and seem to cross pollinate, for I am always finding different variations.

Another plant which is prouving to be invaluable as ground cover is the Cotoneaster.horizontalis. It seems to be able to cope with the heat and what cold we have and is thriving.

Another success have been the box (buxus). I bought 4 small plants about 6 years ago, and have been training them into balls. although they are slow growing I am very pleased with their progress.

When I was at the top of the garden this morning I noticed that the Prickly Pear (Opuntia.robusta ) had a couple of flowers on it. They are at least a month early, along with many other plants.

Another success have been my Bay ( Laurus.noblis ) hedges. The hedges are all from cuttings which I took from the Bay balls, mentioned in a previous post.

I have two ornamental pools and a spring with a small rill in the back garden. They have quite a lot of fish in them, however some time ago they were discovered by a Heron, so I have to have them netted. They do however attract all kinds of wildlife and insects to the garden.

Finally this week a number of roses continue to produce flowers. The one featured is a Tom Robinson rose. Tom used to be my neighbour, and gave me many of his roses. It sits not far from our back door and is called Woodlands Lady.