SEPTEMBER IN THE RAIN

The leaves of brown come tumbling down - remember - well, you know -

So autumn is upon us, early but nevertheless the trees are turning, fruit is ripe. Have just picked 4 pounds of damsons and have hardly touched the crop. Would be picking plums also but raining again. The courgettes are threatening to be marrows. S the gardener has trimmed the beech hedge, cut back the lower Rambling Rector Rose and strimmed upper banking - and we have a rabbit hole! The house martins are gathering but have not yet gone, not quite. How such small birds fly thousands of miles to Africa and back amazes me. At least they are not restricted by any virus.

Despite the late time of year we have plenty of flowers - 

The white phlox is lighting up the garden and filling the air with its scent.

 Cosmos and Japanese anemones also are white flowers that have come into their own.
The Erigeron is spreading nicely beside the path down from the paved area to the lower path.

And we have a lot of colour with the Zinnias, alstroemeria and rudbeckia.

The pink Japanese anemones, because they were taking over the bed near the house, were moved to the banking below the lawn to fight with the weeds and are doing well, but I missed a small piece of root and we have flowers in the original bed. 

So to the cardoons, their heads weighing down the stems - they need steel poles to hold them erect.

Another flower fighting the weeds is the tansy. I brought this back from Connemara some years ago - no doubt in flagrant contravention of some law or another. It is good to run one's hand through the plant and inhale the smell.

And then there is what I call Phebe's rose, Rosa rubifolia, from her garden at Wormleighton Manor and carefully taken by me from house to house. Last year it looked tired but now is loaded with hips. Below it R has been waiting all summer for her Lavandula x clementii Barnsley, a tree mallow, to flower and it is just getting going.
 
So there are cats, squirrels, rats and rabbits and birds in the garden and this -
 

And I have just watched a willow warbler on the shed roof.

 

Last night Monty Don gave advice re pears, when and how to pick etc - so off down the garden, lift the pear and it comes away easily with stem attached so need 2 days ripening on a sunny windowsill leaving the stem on.