Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Is your garden acting unseasonably this year? (Harringay's year of the parakeet)
We have a number of plants that are repeat flowering throughout the season or can have a brief autumn flowering. This year repeaters and reflowerers have been unusually prolific and we've had one or two things putting in an autumn show for the first time.
The picture above, taken from an upstairs window, is our Madame Alfred Carriere Rose which I planted 20 years ago. It's now 20 feet high and is a firm favourite with us and our neighbours, both for its flowering and its delicious classic rose scent. It normally flowers reliably through the season and beyond, spluttering a bit from October onwards. But this year, in mid October, it started flowering almost as much as it will in spring in a typical year.
Our Choisya bush was the same. Most surprising of all though was our Berberis darwninii, which, every April is smothered in pendulous orange flowers. This year, it started flowering along with the rose, beneath which it happily sits. (Because I'm less familiar with their habits I'm not even mentioning the Persicaria or the mass of seven foot high seed grown Cosmos that are still flowering prolifically or the cactus Dahlias kindly given to me by a HoL member which doing the same.)
And, I can't have been the only one to be aware of the incessant squawk of the parakeets in Harringay this year: it's really the first time I've been aware of them here. They're prtettty to look at but I'm not a fan of their calls (Note calls vs songs!)/
What with the weather this year, I guess this is the year that climate change stepped up a notch in Harringay.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jon C on
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Parakeets are not a sign of any climate change - they squawk at any time of year. We get them over ours in Wood Green in Spring, summer, autumn and winter.
A lot of flowering this year has been very much held back by the heat and the drought of Summer '22 (even Monty said so on Gardener's World). However, this wet and warm autumn has been particularly good for our fuchsias, salvias and begonias (autumn is their season, after all - as it is for the daisy family including cosmos) - but, bejeezus... the sycamore seeds! The heaviest crop we've seen in years, all over the place, damn them!
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Permalink Reply by Sarah on
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My patio is full of sycamore seeds, not sure where they are coming from!
I don't think I ever saw a parakeet in Haringey before 2020.
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Permalink Reply by Adrian Hackney on
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The parakeets are part of the Haringey drive for bio-homogeneity based around non-native species. It is still possible occasionally to hear song birds in Finsbury Park and the water fowl on the lake are doing well, but mainly one sees parakeets, grey squirrels and Canada Geese. The native species doing well include crows,pigeons and (not quite native but very well established) rats. Why do people feed crows and pigeons?
Just past the height of the drought I took this picture of ferns on the recently planted Woodberry Down estate. This is not a cheery picture, but I am pleased that nearly every one of these ferns has now either recovered or is showing green shoots
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