Ligularia 'Bottle Rocket' - Garden Crossings

This season feels wrong. December is supposed to be dry, cold, and calm. Instead, rain keeps falling, the Harmattan never showed up, and the land is confused. Crops like cashew, mango, and yam depend on a proper dry season. Cashew needs dryness to flower well. Mango requires cold, dry air to trigger flowering. Yam needs dry soil to mature and store properly. When rain replaces Harmattan, flowering becomes weak, pests increase, diseases spread, and yields drop. This is not normal weather variatio

As the pincushions come to the end of their flowering season, I’ve been taking a moment to reflect on how they’ve performed this year. They’re such a fantastic plant — strong, healthy, and full of life — with very few issues or disease problems. But despite all that, they haven’t quite sold as well as I’d hoped. So, looking ahead to next season, I’ll be scaling back and replacing most of them with a few different varieties. When I first planted them, I didn’t quite realise just how vigorous they