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.

THERMOSTAT UP AGAIN?

Not for long. It is August and struggling to 13C!

The Hydrangea Annabelle is heavy with rain and bent to the ground, the agapanthus are going over, we do have the odd flower on the big magnolia but the old Rosa rubrifolia has been blown sideways.

One thing about the Hydrangea is it does make a good toupee.

Yellow daisies come and go - the helianthemum on the right is just coming out.

Down at the pond R has coerced the gardener into the waders and he has cleared out a lot of the plants in the water, leaving them on the side so the bugs etc can climb back in.

He has also trimmed part of the lower garden though I have to say that despite all efforts the wild flower meadow is more of a bog with yellow pea in it. Where has all the yellow rattle gone?

Still the gunnera flourishes and we have our dragonflies patrolling their flight paths. This, I think, is a Migrant Hawker.

No video this week - left the camera by the pond and the wind blew a bladed of grass black and forth across. There were 546 short videos of the grass moving.

I have trimmed the beech hedge and pulled some of the creeping thistle from the manure heap. One thing that spreads all over the place is the Tutsan.

A very good spreader though is the marjoram. And useful in the kitchen too. The insects love it.  

And for some reason known only to itself the rhododendron has begun to flower again.

What should I end with - how about an evening pint of cider by the sea.

WE HAVE HANKIES

 

Yes we have handkerchiefs on our Davidia. We were given it seventeen years ago by my brother and sister-in-law and it has finally flowered.

We watch the tv, visit gardens like Holker Hall and everywhere are thousands of tulips (at some expense) but it is beautiful. We have a few around, must get more for next year. So we potter - well I do, my main gardener R weeds away whilst I fail to light bonfires, put in some purple sprouting broccoli and cosmos, and write blogs. The other gardener A has mown and so on. He got out my mower for the first time after servicing and petrol poured from the filter - a stuck float or something. I await the mower man.

The white comfrey has spread and R has decided to experiment by cutting one plant back hard to see if it will regrow. Talking of regrowth the big osier that was damaged by the snow and was cut right back is sprouting like an unshaven chin.

To the woods, to the woods - that reminds me of an Abbott and Costello film - where the primrose banking and bluebells are in fine fettle. We do have some cowslips and violets too but the wild garlic will have to be watched as it is acting like an alien invasion force.

The red rhododendron is flowering though the yellow azalea is not yet out. The scented rhododendron is almost over, its petals fading and falling.

Here is the glorious sight of a dug and manured veg bed waiting for plants. The other bed alongside it has still got broccoli and for some reason Sweet Williams in it. Another bed waiting is suddenly showing potato leaves - I must have missed them last year when digging them up.

So where does it all come from?