GREY DAYS

 

And so the clock go back an hour and the grey days creep in across the bay, mist, last week torrential rain and in the garden the grey foliage plants come into their own.

Euphorbias are a mainstay, in the garden and also in pots by the back door.

And many other shrubs, shade on shade.

We are awaiting the arrival of the fieldfares and redwings. The hips and haws are ripe and not yet taken by the thrushes and blackbirds.

We still have a few flowers especially the lingering geraniums and, as usual the fatsia.

And the red alstroemeria (that R does not like). She has cut back the herbaceous plants, now over, in the back bed and I have assassinated the bay tree by the kitchen that is getting too big. I hate to think where its roots may be going. Then I cut back the buddleias - I know should be done in February but it lets so much more light into the kitchen when done.

And there are browns, whether in variegated shrubs, dying cherry leaves or moribund hostas.

We have a bonfire but it is soaking so for another day not Bonfire Night.

Plans are afoot to build new veg beds but, as yet only on paper.

So, Saturday, Happy Birthday Izzy. It is raining here so will stay in. Compost can wait.

IT'S A QUAGMIRE

 Nothing but a quagmire,

And nothing but a heartache . . 

One of the wettest Octobers I can remember and every morning seems to start grey and dark, rain spattering the windows - not much encouragement to get in the garden . . .

But I do a little, cut back some Michaelmas daisies and rue, pull up the cosmos now over, bring compost to the dahlias. 

So far our dahlias have over wintered in the ground with a good hefty much of compost to protect them.

However I have had to change the access to the heaps as the grass is sodden - used a trick from the golf course using alkathene piping. That will remind me to go a less slippery way - with less chance of falling (which I do).

Yet, if we get a short burst of sunlight the Acer is there to cheer me up. 

It is next to the transplanted Euonymus which should have turned bright red by now - but has not. This was it last year.

So, off we went for a few days to our daughter in Herefordshire and left home to the mercy of torrential rain.

When we got back, what a change - the dahlias were all but over, the leaves were almost all off the acer shown above, the cherries had begun to turn and the cercidiphyllum had coloured well.

The rain is driving, the gale is blowing and it is colder. The big trees are mostly stripped of leaves and I must rescue tender plants before it is too late. What do I cover with mulch, what do I pot up and place somewhere safe?

Not today, anyway, today we cross the bay for a funeral of an old friend who has left us - lots of memories today, Stephen went ten years ago and now it is farewell to Jan.

MELLOW FRUITFULNESS

Normally we can see thirty miles across Morecambe Bay from our kitchen but today is a day known to the Scots as dreich. 

It rained all night and we are submerged in cloud and mizzle - a mixture of drizzle and mist

I can just see the trees beyond the big eucalyptus where two pigeons sit and regularly shake the water from their feathers.

It is not really cold, about 12C, and it takes until early afternoon for the cloud to lift with a light breeze.

Nevertheless it still rains.

The garden is full of fruit and seeds. The damsons pears and apples are at an end and the last bowl has been collected, the damsons with my father's old shepherd's crook to pull down the higher branches. Elsewhere there are many types of fruit. 

Haws and hips and barberries.

And then there are seeds - and grasses, figwort, woundwort and opium poppy heads.

One of the most fascinating seed heads is that if the yellow flag iris.

The seeds are packed together rather like stacked coins and are brown flattened discs.

Elsewhere we have germination of grass seed where the old compost heaps were sited. I have now to decide when to remove the protective netting and let the wildlife invade.

Some things are doing well - I cut back the overgrown petunias in the pot outside the kitchen not expecting much but they have regrown. 

The Michaelmas daisies near the front door (the door at the back) are a waterfall over the paving. I had decided to dig them up and move them but now am not so sure. For much of the year they are a rather untidy mess but, at a time when so much is winding down they light up a dark part of the garden.

I watched Gardeners' World and M Don says to not water the succulents through the winter so I will do so but keep a close eye on them, particularly the aeonium. Mind you our specimen cannot compete with his whoppers.

And then the sun comes out, leaves have not all fallen yet and, as long as I keep off the bottom grass there is work to do.

OCTOBERING ON

 R has cut back the cardoons as they were looking decidedly sad. Sometimes I keep them for their winter shape but the recent rain has messed them up. She has also pulled off the last of the rhubarb stems and leaves.

I have cleared the sweet peas and dug over the bed, then tined some areas of the soggy lawn with a fork. There are still roses down by the pond, what we call Hilary's rose and ripe elderberries.

Also dug over most of the "cutting bed" which revealed potatoes! The rue has been cut back - with care - as the sap can cause nasty blistering of the skin.

The leaves turn - including the cercidiphyllum on the right - but as yet cannot smell the toffee scent the old leaves of that tree emits - need some sun? The Acer Sango-kaku simply glows in the sunshine.

Though autumn progresses there are still flowers to light up the garden like the dahlia above and some roses and black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia).

Then the sunshine is threatened by a black cloud highlighting the last leaves on the grey poplar.

We have also the signs of the end of the year, fungi in the lawn grass and, as I mentioned before, the failing ash.

But there is good news - anyone want a big marrow? Too much for just the two of us. Perhaps someone without a pumpkin for Halloween could turn it into a ... ?

For the first time this year I have been blowing leaves off the paths.

More pears have been picked, wrapped in newspaper and put in the shed and there are still a few damsons left if I get out my father's crook and pull down the branches.

I have trimmed backside of the Rambling Rector rose, a thorny business, and continued to pick the last of the fruit, (see next blog.)

We still have flowers but then I saw this - a camellia on the bush by the mower shed!

We have cosmos and dahlias and a few belated white campanulas. (You said dahlias before - so I did.)

We had a gusty day yesterday and I decided to bring our Aeonium inside for the winter. It is happily ensconced on the living room windowsill for now.

Enough, the sun is out, no excuses so wellies on and off I go .