SEPTEMBER IN THE RAIN

Except the leaves of brown tend to come tumbling down here in October. (Dinah Washington)

The swallows and martins are gone except for a late straggler or two.
It is Monday and summer is over. We were woken by heavy rain thudding into the garden from dark skies.
Yesterday I became intrepid despite my new knee and did some dead heading. Two of the huge cardoon stems were prostrate so I removed them to the far end of the garden, then a limp down to the pond and a sit in the sun on the bench for a while.
I tried to get some damsons but many are over and shrivelled on the trees. The friends who say they are coming to pick them will be lucky to find a pound or two at best.
I am paying for my intrepid adventure - leg uncomfortable today.
The bulbs that came whilst I was under the knife are ok but as yet unplanted. They are stored somewhere dry and dark.

And the garden is still full of flowers, in fact the Michaelmas Daisies have yet to come out.
So here is a blast of September colour.

 

 

 

 

 

Picked 2 pounds of the last damsons for S so he can make his damson gin and wrapped two trays full of Bramley apples - now in the shed for the winter. I had to do this whilst R was out as she would not have let me off down the garden in case I fell. I survived. The pears are fattening but when are they ripe? The old conundrum so pick them early and wait. If you lift the apple or pear and they come away easily then they are ready to be harvested. Mind you if they are twenty feet up and the picker has just shed his crutches after a knee operation that can cause some difficulties. I do have a long handled apple picker but the fruit may have to wait a bit. Anyway the rabbits are enjoying the windfalls.

Bought this Dutch weapon for R - saw one like it in Monty Don's hand on TV - for the planting of bulbs, long rooted seedlings etc. The makers Sneeboer call it a weeding trowel but it looks more vicious than that.

4 weeks since the new knee I limped out this afternoon (Thursday) and did some hoeing weeding, cut back the dying stems on the lilies and did not fall over.

The weather is cooler, changeable and showery and the garden is slowly slipping into autumn. Next blog will be in October - where has the year gone?

GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME

I hope.

Occasionally I get asked interesting questions like - what is this root?
And often I do not know. This is from an English garden and is a knobbly rhizome resembling, wait for it, turmeric? possibly ginger? even a grass like miscanthus?
If it is a turmeric the rhizome when cut should be brightly coloured.

If anyone knows better please let me know and I will pass on the information.

Recovering from my knee operation I often sit in the new extension looking across the garden to the white Japanese anemones and, further away, the splash of deep yellow from the rudbeckia Goldsturm. A lazy buzzard flies over, a willow warbler, still here, skulks in the genista.

R has been bottling spiced pears, I think they might end up as Christmas presents. And since I came home from the op she has moved into cake mode - obviously thinks, as usual, I need building up. (This was one of the reasons I used to be a largish fellow.) However to quote Satchmo - almost - 'What a wonderful wife."
White sweet peas - a few - and in then garden white lighting up the dark corners - Japanese anemones

 Marguerites and phlox

And the fleabane (Erigeron) by the path down from the paving are good.

  

R has been taking cuttings from the hydrangea Annabelle, dead heading day lilies, agapanthus, in fact doing gardening I would do if I could.

The scented-leaf geranium will have to come in soon as frosts approach. It has loved being by the seat, after a sharp pruning.

The first leaves are yellowing on the trees (except the sycamore which go dirty greyish brown - if only they went bright red, yellow, anything else.)

Watching the rabbits at the back of the house I am increasingly convinced that they have a burrow up there - once I am more mobile I shall have to go searching. 
And then here they are just outside the house, bold as brass!

The butternut squash plants straggle all over the place but I cannot see any fruit - flowers yes but no fruit.
Examining the big damson the damage from the pocket plum is plain to see with many shrivelled fruit - but still enough for us to freeze and eat.

Anyway, knees must, back to the exercises.

THE CHERRY STORY

As I sit here in front of my computer in an opiate induced haze, wincing as I move my new right knee, I watch the relentless grass grow on the lawns, the bindweed scaling new heights and turn again to the exercises that will return me to my garden.

I have tried an experiment - I noticed the butterflies sunning themselves on the table outside and thought that I could feed them as well as the birds - sugar solution in a shallow container. Now I wait.

We are eating our chard, have half a dozen sweet pea flowers in a vase and I have sneaked out down the garden to look at the unharvested apples, pears and damsons - crutches, bad leg, good leg.

The ornamental cherries seem bigger than ever - well of course they are but BIGGER bigger. From the house Shirotae to the right, Tai Haku to the left. Soon they may need pruning.

When we started there was nothing there, then, after a couple of years - about 2008 - we planted the trees. This is the shirotae, planted and, I note, poorly staked. The stake should have been at 45 degrees pointing into the prevailing wind. Mind you we are well sheltered and do not get much of that.


By 2011 the garden was really staring to take shape and the Shirotae - beloved because its flowers hang down and you look up into them - mimicking the curve of our new path.

By October of that year they were thriving - Shirotae to the left, Tai Haku to the right.

I will not bother you with the story of the rediscovery of the Great White Cherry in the UK when it had all but gone from Japan - you can look it up on the internet.

Both flowering  well in the spiring of 2013 and lighting up the garden, the Great White with brownish leaves, the other with green.









In 2014 I took close-ups of the flowers and here you can see the pendant nature of the Shirotae blossom on the right compared with the other.

The sheer volume of shirotae blossom next year was wonderful as these two photos show.

An 2016 early spring shot shows how open the garden still was though all the old growth in the beds had been cleared and the leaves were not yet on the trees. The two cherries are in blossom.

By this year (2019) the trees dominated the April garden with vast amounts of flower and now, in September, we are beginning to feel like we are living in woodland.
The necessity of pruning may come soon.

And now for something completely different - leg bends and stretches, codeine and naps - soon, please soon, I shall be gardening again.

AFTER THE BALL IS OVER

An early morning, early autumnal view from the window in our new extension.

If I move a plant and do not know what to do with it it gets put in the weedy jungle on the banking below the veg beds. One example is this Acanthus - one of the prickliest things I know - vicious. Anyway it seems to enjoy being there along with some Tansy and pink Japanese anemones, a pink sidalcea and cast off day lilies. The background is a discarded willow that has been mutilated by tying the branches together - albeit in a rather haphazard way. We used to have a willow tunnel but that got removed when it got too big. In the spring there are still two lines of daffodils where it used to grow. Other willows now form a barrier between the garden and the back field in the very top corner of the garden. The box hedge by the main shed has been trimmed.  However, in attempting to take of a shrivelled leaf from the courgette rather than cutting it off, I pulled the whole plant out of the ground and it is now on the compost heap 😧.

As you may have gathered I am home from the dreaded hospital and on crutches. Enough of my trials and tribulations - just the endless exercises to come and remembering not to kneel down. Steve Austin has nothing on me! For those who cannot remember who he is or was too young - use the internet. Op did not cost 6 million dollars though - good old NHS - hands off Mr Trump.

Down in the veg beds the marigolds are doing well and I am letting them run to seed so I can collect it and sow in the spring. They brighten up a dark corner and are surprisingly hardy. I have raised the canopy on a couple of trees including this on the right and the liquidambar.

Talking trees the white birches are wonderful with their peeling bark. Apparently some people will wash the trunks - a bit much for me.

One small plant that gives good ground cover is the Creeping Jenny. Not many of its yellow flowers showing now but you can see how it got its name.

An update on our ash trees - I have had info from an expert and there is little to be done except, if they are dying and liable to fall on the house, have them cut down. Someone is going to make a lot of money from this. Perhaps I should buy a chain saw and climbing harness - I mean, knee done I might be able to do anything - can one climb trees with crutches?

So finally what is this orange fungus - it is not growing on my knee. I think we shall have to wait and see.  It does not look like any of the images on the web but might be in its infancy - can a fungus be in its infancy? Dunno. Orange peel fungus sprung to mind but . . . 

Finally, finally a bow to memory loss - in the rosa rugosa hedge I can see out of my window is a shrub covered in red berries. I am sure I did not put it there - did I? This is one of the tall shrubby cotoneasters, not horizontalis.

And now for something completely different - as a man delighted that he only has two knees, albeit metal. It will be interesting to see if, after being left for a couple of months, how much work it will take to recover the garden. I mean trees and shrubs are little problem - it is more mowing and scything and weeding, let alone planting 450 bulbs!!