Mel 🍂🍄

The hand of a skeleton giving a high five from a flowerbed

A Heuchera Midnight Rose

Happy Halloween and blessed Samhain everyone! Wishing you a wonderfully spooky day. I’ll hopefully be planting my tulips bulbs (I usually do!) 🥰🎃💀🪦🖤 🌱 #halloween

A black background decorated with gold illustrations of branches, stars, swords, ravens, and tiny ghost shapes. In the centre, bold text reads: “BIRDS BUT THEY GET SPOOKIER EACH TIME.” Two ravens perch on bare branches at the bottom, with candles glowing beside them.

Birds but they get spookier each time. 🎃👻

Enter if you dare...🚪

Yes I am the same they don’t make it if I leave them down and sometimes they don’t store well either so often I treat them as annuals and just get a few. They’re still flowering now so they do keep going for a while if it’s not too cold!

A Dracula dahlia

A Dracula dahlia

No it’s actually just the leaves of the dahlia variety! I grow this one called Dracula which is similar, with black foliage too 😍🖤

I need to find out what this dahlia is called because I’m always looking for more with black foliage! 😍🖤👍

A collage of four pictures of black flowers (a fuchsia, a lily, violas and an allium)

The foliage of the Midnight Rose Heuchera

A collage of two pictures of a dahlia with a light pink flower and black foliage surrounded by a fake cobweb and spider Halloween decoration

Halloween theme you say? 🎃🖤 here’s some of my own black plants from over the year and a lovely display I saw this week at a cafe using a gorgeous dahlia! #GardensHour 🌱

Thank you! And it’s been so nice to recycle the plants and give them another home 😂👍🪦

A pink clematis with dark leaves growing over a headstone

A pot of viola tricolour flowers growing in front of a headstone

A red and black salvia flower growing in front of a headstone

Definitely most proud of the recycled/reused plants (also grown from my own seed) and donated pots I’ve slowly added to a local churchyard. As part of a plan to improve a quiet, unloved area there. Put in 5 unwanted yarrows last week from our local In Bloom summer bedding scheme too 🥰👍 #GardensHour

Environment groups are anything but ‘mute’ on the planning bill | Letters Letter: Craig Bennett, Hilary McGrady, Dr James Robinson and Richard Benwell say they have never stopped campaigning on the planning and infrastructure bill’s flaws

Alongside @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social, @nationaltrust.org.uk & @wclnews.bsky.social, we’ve responded to @georgemonbiot.bsky.social 's piece on the Planning Bill.

He’s right: it’s a grave threat to nature.

But we’ve never been silent.

We’ve challenged it at every turn & we won’t stop now.

A stone goblin statue from my garden sitting with his hand on his cheek thoughtfully

Most goblins were said to be malicious. Causing problems in homes by banging pots and pans, moving furniture or tapping on walls and doors. Hobgoblins are more friendly! They happily help humans in exchange for gifts. These are the guys I like to think I have in my garden! 😂 #FolkloreSunday 🌱

A stone goblin statue from my garden sitting with his hand on his cheek thoughtfully

Most goblins were said to be malicious. Causing problems in homes by banging pots and pans, moving furniture or tapping on walls and doors. Hobgoblins are more friendly! They happily help humans in exchange for gifts. These are the guys I like to think I have in my garden! 😂 #FolkloreSunday 🌱

The black flower of a Black Ship lily

A screenshot of a post from Twitter claiming it’s hard to find these lilies

A Tiny Lion lily flower

A black calla lily flower

I always see posts like this getting attention but they confuse me because it’s really not that hard to buy any of those flowers or grow them for yourself. I’ve grown them all this year! 😂 🌱 #FlowersOnFriday

The Star Wars dahlia with twin sun blooms

The entrance hall in Rise of the Resistance at WDS in Florida

The sea front of Niamos from Andor (Cleveleys Lancashire)

Over on the the old bird app people seem to be claiming that girls can’t like Star Wars which is totally ridiculous. I like it so much I even grow the “Star Wars” dahlia! Take that guys 😝😂 🌱 #StarWars

It’s in the Netherlands near Tilburg! So we travel over there from the UK on a ferry. Yes I’ve been to Florida many times but also California and Vegas. I haven’t done any of the smaller US parks though like I’ve never been to Dollywood 😭 which looks fantastic 😍

Beautiful! 😍

Yes! That’s so true they’re very pretty but you need to be careful with them 😂

A cluster of purple monkshood flowers

Purple monkshood flowers on a tall green stem

It’s monkshood season in my garden at the moment and they really do look like little cloaks or hats don’t they! #GardensHour

A handful of black flowers including violas, scabious and million bells

A black ship lily flower

A black calla lily flowering

A black Paul Scherer tulip flower

Hello! 👋 I think I’m best know for my obsession with black flowers and I’d love to know if anybody else has grown anything similar 👍🖤

That sounds absolutely perfect! 😂👏 it was very grey yesterday which I enjoyed because I do think it adds to the atmosphere and mood of the park if it’s a bit overcast!

Oh I bet you’ll have a great time! It’s really fun and all the decorations are so cute as well. The park looks lovely 😍👍

Up close view of a red and white amantia mushroom

Two red and white amantia mushrooms

A yellow and brown cluster of honey fungus growing on a tree stump

Spotted some gorgeous mushrooms at Alton Towers too! Haven’t seen a amanita that big before in a car park 😂😍🍄 #fungi #fungifriends

Overall a suitably gloomy day was had! 🖤

A statue of a green frog on a fake lily pad in the pond wearing a small witches hat and cape

A statue of a zombie Scarefest character holding Halloween flags at Alton Tower

The frogs have got their hats on! Had loads of fun at Scarefest yesterday, hadn’t been to Alton Towers in a while but the 3 mazes they’ve got now are pretty great 🥰🎃

Three pink flowers of the Dracula dahlia that also has black foliage, in a pot

Still recovering from the storm here (hope nobody else has sustained any real damage) but the Dracula dahlias are loving spooky season so far! They’re having another flowering session in honour in the vampire’s favourite month! 😂🩸🦇🧛🏻‍♂️ #GardensHour

Thank you! That is so lovely. Yeah I’m lucky I have a hawthorn tree in my garden and I love to make stuff from the cuttings 🥰

They’re so easy to make! I just used the left over twigs when I cut back some herbs, shrubs and trees and some gardening string 🧙🏻‍♀️

A small wooden broomstick

A large orange and green pumpkin

This week I made brooms from garden off cuts (hawthorn and herbs mostly) and bought (not grown sadly 😂) a gorgeous pumpkin! First of the year 🥰🎃 🌱

A handful of black flowers (viola, million bells and scabious) and some black rose hips

A hand being held in front of a very large orange pumpkin on the ground

It’s nearly October! So have a handful of dark flowers from my garden (and rose hips) that are still going strong and a massive pumpkin I saw at the garden centre 😂🎃 🌱 #GardensHour

A blue circle plaque on a concrete path to celebrate the filming of Andor in Cleveleys in Lancashire

Concrete port hole structures on Cleveleys beach

The sunset on Cleveleys beach looking over the steps down to a shell sculpture called Mary’s Shell

I have friends everywhere 🥰(considering I live down the road I don’t go to Niamos as often as I should!) #Andor #StarWars

A Continental tulip with an almost black bloom

A Continental tulip with an almost black bloom

Yes! I’ve had a lot of luck with Continental coming back, for the third time this year. Not lost that many either. Really good compared to some I’ve grown which never do anything the following year! 😭😩