Garden Diary – Making Pesto & discovering Beardtongues

Erysimum ‘bowles mauve’, also known as a perennial wallflower, is such a fabulous plant to have in your garden, it just keeps flowering all year around!

It is classed as a perennial but it’s more like a small shrub in appearance and the fact that it doesn’t die off in winter adds to this.

Eventually, after a few years they go to look really spindly and get too big. This is the time to take cuttings, if not before.

It is a really easy plant to take cuttings from, just choose a new shoot with no flower buds yet formed. Pop it into some gritty compost, or just pop it into the border, it usually strikes.

I don’t think I’ve ever bought a one. I was given my first plant from a friend who’d propagated it from her Erysimum. Since then I’ve just kept taking cuttings to replace my fading plant.

My lovely purple campanula has decided to bloom again, in amongst the mainly dead flowers in the wilder area. I nearly missed it, but I went to look at the few remaining orange tithonia flowers and spotted it.

In the greenhouse I noticed that the large basil plant was showing the first signs of running to seed, so I called and got a bag of pine nuts and made some pesto. It made six portions, one for dinner that night and five for the freezer. That’ll be another taste of summer in mid-winter.

I found a photo from last year when the fennel had gone mad. It’s a stunning plant that many people grow just for ornamental purposes, but it tastes delicious.

We would pick a piece and chew it when gardening, like aniseed sweets from our childhood. You can also save the hundreds of seeds for cooking through the year. Plus the bees love it!

We had some stunning blue skies again last week, all the better for showing off the beautiful colour of the trees and shrubs. Even my new little Acer tree in a pot was showing off in the morning sunshine.

I love learning new little facts, especially things to do with plants and garden. I’d only just said this to someone, when up popped a post on Twitter – yes I know it’s called X now, but no one calls it that – anyway, I’d never heard Penstemon called Beardtongues and I love it!

Finally, sorry I did miss posting for a couple of days, so we’ve jumped to Sunday. My yellow Chrysanthemums have never looked so good. I’m surprised as they were growing during the drought and I didn’t water them at all. What hardy plants they must be!

They were given to me by a proper old gardener – something I aspire to be one day! He told me to lift them and put them into the greenhouse over winter, but I thought I’d see if they survived, and there they’ve been ever since.

It just shows how the winters have changed since the last generation started gardening, to now.

Monday 27th October 2025

I’ve been growing Erysimum ‘bowles mauve’ for years 💜

Classed as a perennial, it’s more like a tiny shrub. Evergreen & flowers all year round.

Gets too spindly after a few years, but so easy to take cuttings 🌿💜🌿💜🌿💜

#magentamonday

Tuesday 28th October 2025

Campanula having another flush in the wilder area 🌿💜🌿

#tuesdayblue #campanula

If you grow your own Basil, you’ll know it goes mad. But when you can just pop it into the liquidiser with Parmesan, Pine nuts, Olive oil, Garlic & Lemon, to make pesto. You have to ask yourself, can you have too much Basil? 🤔 #pesto #recipes #basil

Wednesday 29th October 2025

A beautiful sunny day yesterday with intense blue skies, & it looks like today is going to be the same. All the better to enjoy the autumn trees 🍁💙☀️🍁 #Autumn #autumnfall #trees