AUTUMN TAIL END

 What a lovely sunny crisp day down by the bay, cotoneaster berries flourishing and nearby the black bryony hanging in poisonous ropes in the hedge.

But no it is not at home - the tide has gone out and the fog rolled in.

There is still colour in then garden, calendulas and nasturtiums.

However many of the leaves have fallen and are blown away, mainly under shrubs where they can rot down as a mulch.

The big cherry still has a few and the beech hedge is well coloured.

The gardener has removed the last of the buddleia from by the septic tank and R wants miscanthus to replace it - we have some so will need dividing and replanting. At least with the tank and our own borehole we do not have to pay water rates (yet) nor contribute to the pollution of our rivers.

In the main path up the garden a couple of shaggy parasol fungi have erupted. We do not seem to have had as many fungi this year but have no idea why - perhaps the wet year has drowned the lot? It has been exceptionally wet and that is saying something for it always rains a lot here. I have decided to cease mowing although the grass is a bit long as it is so boggy.

Well, that all folks, hard frosts at night, snow forecast but missed us, my knees gone and wobbly so physics and doctors and so on - exercises for strength and balance, out walking, well stumbling along walking stick in hand.

So I will leave you with the fatsia in full bloom and the rose on the shed still in flower.

This weekend twenty to thirty thousand people will descend on our town for the annual Dickensian Festival - locally known as the Dickfest. We pray for good weather but it looks like it might rain as it often does here.

WHAT A GREY DAY

 For sitting by the wood burner and toasting your feet. Under high pressure the weather does not change much. 

R is interested in getting in a garden company to do stuff - which as all I do is fall over and cut a little stuff back might be a good idea.

Still have some lingering photos a bit late but here they are and then I can archive them.

So, the stream (drain) from the field at the back is pouring water into the garden and the leaves from the trees are blocking channels causing overflow etc etc. I wonder how much an acre of paving or concrete would cost. Then it could just be lots off pots?

Just been to Winchester Cathedral and we think we have water problems. Here is the Gormley in the Crypt - flooded.

This is how it feels to walk our lower garden.

So we are now on winter time and all is going dark. We have Bonfire night ahead and this endless US election. Floods in Spain and drones bombing all over the place. There is enough misery in the world without Putin putting his boot in (rhyme). Why cannot everyone be nice to one another? 

So we have had another gale and sticks are everywhere, rooks sit in the tops of the leafless trees and caw loudly.

Oh! For spring.

Just had an email from my cousin in NZ where it is spring. Too old to move out there now. What I need is a lot of money, a private plane and a house in Nelson or on the Coromandel for the winter.

There is not a breath of wind here, it is overcast and chilly and damp. The pheasants seem happy though. Video is a bit gloomy.

Now the iCloud will not recognise my password - Aaaaargh!

WHAT AUTUMN

 First there was no autumn, than there was, then there was storm Ashley and the leaves are gone all too soon. 

Sun is out today - a turnip for the books. Mind you the turnips are all too big old and woody now.

Just have to eat the cavolo nero.

A few pre storm pics of autumn leaves - 

And some of the Bramleys. Missed the apple day so put some away in the shed for the winter individually wrapped in newspaper.

Here are a couple more pics - hydrangea and rue -

And the birds have been feeding on windfall fruit especially the magpies and jays so here is a confrontation - see who wins, both tough corvids.

Not all autumn colour is so bright and more subtle tones can be found.

On the other hand the Virginia creeper, alas now without leaves, was spectacular.

And so to gardening and, yes, I tried to light the bonfire again - tried, it flared and then went out.

So the sun has gone down and so have I, winter beckons and it is becoming all to much for this old codger. So R will rally her troops - employ someone - to have a go. I wait and see.

Having just found out that my Great Great Grandfather abandoned his family and went to Utah, became a Mormon and had two more wives I shall end with a portrait I have found on the web - Robert Hogg.

I wish my plants grew as profusely as his beard.

OPINIONS

 

Cut that tree down, trim that hedge, organise more and pop goes the wild garden (or is wild garden and excuse for doing nowt much?)

And autumn approaches - hips on the roses, some small and some more luxurious. 

Some flowers are flourishing late in the year but we are still waiting for the Michaelmas daisies.

The sedum line the paving by the house, the blue clematis released to flower by the removal of the bay tree.

But someone is right as I cannot do it all any longer, brain is fading, body shot at, and someone else is fed up doing all the weeding, seeing the ravages of slug snail, mouse, pigeon and - well you get the idea.

We have lit our first wood burner of the year end as the weather cools. Plants have arrived - tulips from Sarah Raven and some ranunculi and hollyhocks from Farmer Gracey.

They need to be planted.

Down in the veg beds are moribund redcurrants  (they only feed the birds anyway), asparagus going brown and wispy, and one cannot eat the holes in the Cavolo Nero. 

The gardener sweeps around with his strimmer but wet grass does not mow easily.

Algae is back on the pond, the Tutsan is berried up ready to seed all over the place and the ash trees behind the bottom shed have the plague (and are just next door).

So on we go, and on and on and on . . . . . 

PATTERN NOT COLOUR

  A garden is mostly green and within this there are shapes and patterns, not just topiary but in the leaves themselves. So out I went with my camera and took monochrome images as below.

The garden is full of shapes and sizes, shades and hidden corners if we just look, not just at the swathe of dahlias and carpet of geraniums but into the diverse world of undergrowth - bark texture and colour, even the soil itself.

Having said that I am not averse to a splash of calendula, the blue of the agapanthus nor even the white of  plastic heron turned egret.