Well, you certainly can't say that the rose in our garden has not been trying hard until the end... 

She did manage to get one flower properly into bloom about mid-November, but the second of the late blooming attempts was really too late. So it got snowed upon and frozen out when it was just half open.

Still quite a feat, though, and somehow I find it very amusing. Shows that not just human beings can be a little too late...

The weather has been weird for a good while here now, with autumns so long and so mild that the rose in our garden is regularly going for a last flowering in October/November. So I figured that we'd might as well make the most out of global warming, and planted a fig bush three years ago. It's hardy enough to survive the winters here, though it has to be protected against late frosts, because it will otherwise just go pouty and mope around and not grow leaves forever (or until it is pruned back a bit again). 

This year is the first time that it actually made figs that managed to ripen, though! Last year it put out about two fruits, and those were a complete disappointment. But this time around, they are actually nice.

They are not very large, but (since the Most Patient Husband of Them All is not as fond of them as I am), they are all mine :)

Next one up to make fruits will be the passionfruit plants and the fig cactus. Though the latter might still need a year or two to grow...

Because I have a few pictures left from my recent photography trip to the garden, here you go: 

That are  leadwort flowers. It's a nice plant, blooming blue and rather robust (like, as mentioned, about all the things growing in our garden). They are not getting too many visitors currently, but that's probably because there is a lot of competition... and occasionally, a bee or bumblebee are enthusiastically making their way from one flower to the next.

There's more flowers on the other side of our fence, growing from underneath the willows. I've always found it lovely when flowers peek out of a garden, into the street, making the public space (which is usually drab, grey, and rather boring) a little bit more colourful and pretty. And now our own plants do that too!

And finally, some minstrel bugs doing, well, what they feel they should do: 

Did I mention the many, many grasshoppers also active at the moment? The bee hotels are sort of mostly on hiatus at the moment, with very little activity (most of the slots are taken, and hopefully young bees are developing inside), so there's not much going on there. But the meadow is full of grasshoppers making their grasshoppery noises, a concert that goes on all day and most of the night, swelling and ebbing and altogether wonderful to listen to.

Here's some of the musicians:  

The different species also sound quite differently - it really is fascinating! 

This is, to our very great delight, the first year where something attractive to insects has been in flower at all times - no gaps at all! There were times in the previous years where there was not much going on, flower-wise, so we tried to close that gap. Successfully.

Some of the plants are wild, some are cultured, but all of them are pretty robust, because my gardening style can best be described as "demented squirrel" - plant or sow the seeds, and then completely forget about it. If things go well, I'm then pleasantly surprised about the thing coming up (and usually remember that yes, there was something...) and if things don't go well, that plant obviously has no place in our garden. 

Currently in the prime position of things doing their thing? Wild parsnip. 

The Most Patient Husband of Them All and I both agree that these are, well, not the prettiest of plants. Actually, I find them relatively ugly... which normally would mean that I pull most of them out, and free some space for other things to take over.

But. Oh, there's a big but: The flowers, and the developing seed stands, are teeming with insect life. TEEMING. As in there is a cloud of flying critters around them all day long.

These plants are the preferred meeting-and-mating spot for minstrel bugs.  Plus there's a huge range of different flies, mostly hover flies, hanging out there. One or two hornets are commonly seen around as well, on the hunt for some juicy prey (though I've not seen a successful attack yet).

Which means... we are in total agreement that these ugly green-yellow guys are welcome to stay, and grow, and do their thing. After all, there's space enough for other things as well, and every flower that helps insect life in our day and time is more than welcome, and oh so necessary.

In the back of our garden, there's a few special thistle plants: Weaver's cards. They are quite similar to the wild card plants, but their heads are a little more cylindrical than conical, and a bit firmer.

And to my delight, they are now blooming: 

 It's not looking too spectacular, the flowers - but I think it fascinating how they start in the middle and then the flower strip, consisting of a lot of single small blossoms, goes both upwards and downwards.

This year, I'm quite happy with the successive flowering of plants in our garden - there's been no gap yet, with something attractive to the bees always in bloom. At the moment, it's the lavendar that takes prime position, though it's not the only thing getting attention. 

There's still a number of plants I'd like to have in the garden, or have more of, but I have sort of accepted that this takes time. There used to be foxgloves and calendula, but they have disappeared, and I'd love to have them back. Probably that means some seed buying, or some seed stealing, at some point in the near future. And then maybe it will work this time around, maybe not - eventually there will be plants that thrive with the soil and amount of attention they will be getting here, and then it will be fine. 

Meanwhile the little lemon tree has decided to make more leaves again. I'm very happy about that, as it had been flagging for quite a while, even though I had tried to get it enough (special citrus plant) fertiliser, and have it watered correctly (it did not like getting too dry at all, and actually wants much more water more frequently than the instructions everywhere had led me to believe). But even though it's supposed to like hard water, it did not do too well with it (so now I use rain water), and the special fertiliser also didn't cut the mustard. The leaves it made were relatively few, and they were more yellow than green.

I finally figured out that it lacked both iron and magnesium, so I provided both - what a good thing that we had an iron oxide (for making iron gall ink) and chalk (for bouldering) that are the two key ingredients in iron and magnesium fertilisers. I had to guess for the amounts, and delivered some more magnesium a few days ago, but at least the iron has arrived, as the new leaves are a nice dark red (as they should be, or so the Internet tells me). 

Regardless of its plights, and the fact that it does not look very pretty (rather irregular and not decoratively tree-ish), it has taken its job of making lemons quite seriously, and we've been able to have home-grown lemon for quite a while now. It is also getting ready to try and make some more, as you can see on the image!

So... any plants or flowers you would not want to miss in your garden, or urban green space like your balcony?