LIFE IN THE OLD GARDEN

Yet! 

Here are some of the wildlife from the last month or so - we have also had many more including a badger visit.

RAT

Immature cock pheasant

Wood mice (long tailed field mouse)

Rabbits

Wood Pigeon

There is so much to do, put off because of the operation, but having said that, the limping man has just mown a chunk of lawn (can you have a chunk of lawn?).

Now to reds and yellows, red sky and euonymus elata - and yellows - Acer Sango-kaku and Rudbeckia Goldsturm -  

On some of the evergreen shrubs the greenery is reverting and will need the reverted bit cut out - when I get around to it. R continues to dead head and cut back and plant stuff, she has put endless bulbs under the white birches. I had not been down to that part of the garden for a while and was delighted to see the bark, even on the youngest trees, has now gone white.

And still it rains a lot giving so many grey days (the spot of yellow is a self-sown sunflower from the bird feeders.

 So as Boris the Cunning weaves his way through the politics of Brexit pretending to be a bumbling harmless chap (don't you believe it), Donald the Devious dodges impeachment if he can and Pugilistic Putin watches and smiles, I think I will have a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread.

And now I learn that Charles Jencks, co-founder of Maggie's cancer charity and designer of the Garden of Cosmic Speculation and Crawick Multiverse has died aged 80. 
The world is a poorer place.

SEASON OF MISTS AND . . .

not a sign of mellow fruitfulness, just wind and rain and rain and rain. 

The butterflies are still with us especially on the remaining buddliea flowers.

Comma to the left, red admirals right. The inundation of painted ladies has dissipated now.

The holly in the bottom hedge is loaded with berries as are the briars and cotoneasters. Does that spell out a hard winter to come? No doubt the blackbirds, thrushes, redwings and fieldfares will enjoy the harvest.

Rosey's hydrangea cuttings are potted up for the winter and the bushes are still putting on a good show. I must soon plant out the ones I took last year as they have rooted.




There is leaf colour coming and leaf fall now from the ash trees.


Strawberry leaves to the left, Euonymus to the right.

Down the garden the water lily leaves are beginning to submerge but, as soon as my knee allows I will need to tidy up the banks of the pond.

At the back of the house the Michaelmas Daisies are finally coming into flower but flopping across the way to the front door (the one at the back). So a primitive use of stakes has been employed to hold them back.

In fact they have become too big and will need to the dug up, divided and replanted this winter.

The stream is a bit clogged as my operation came before I could prepare it for autumn so it has overflowed into the white birches. Yesterday I donned my boots and went and limped off down the garden and cleared some of it out. Also, with all the rain, springs have appeared near the bonfire area so, as to try and protect the grass, I dug a small trench across to the stream.
And then hobbled back to the house.

In the new rose bed Lois and Ian's rose is flowering again. The bed needs a good cut back and clear out, The aquilegias have almost taken over having sown themselves everywhere.

We have abundant apples and pears and R took some to church at the weekend - and left the trug behind. They may rise a pound or two for the coffers.

Another flowering glory at this time of year are the Kaffir lilies, so delicate. I prefer this deeper red to the paler pink ones.

Between the showers and longer spells of rain I have planted up two pots with Madame LeFebre red tulips, R dead headed and I mowed the small lawns near the house - very slowly as per knee.

Still harvesting apples and pears.

AND SO TO OCTOBER BLUES

R has gone for a walk around the block after planting about 100 of the 250 wild daffodils under the birches. She says the soil is all stone and water so we will see how they do. As she was out, and against knee op preservation instructions, I put 25 jonquils outside the new window in the extension. 
Where have all the small birds gone? A month ago the feeders were inundated, up to ten at a time, now just the odd blue or coal tit, occasional chafing or sparrow. Perhaps they have headed south for better weather? (Except it is raining ther too.)

So when is a blue blue? I hear so many lavender and purplish flowers called blue but . . ?
We let me start with Ceratostigma willmottianum. (Ignore the geranium having a second flush.) 

This is a true blue but lavender ('s blue, dilly dilly?) not a true blue - at least this one is not, nor is the shrubby clematis heracleifolia which is described variously as blue or purple. The lavender and the clematis look the same colour to me.

This time of year do bring other blues - winter is coming and the dark days and, dare I say it, the dreaded Christmas. 

So to cheer myself up here are some glorious yellows, the colour of sun - helianthus and rudbeckia.

There that is better.

Meanwhile the garden is becoming an overgrown jungle - much to the delight of the rabbits. I suppose, given the winter and if I can get in the garden, we can drag it back to some sort of order. One early job will be to get rid of the nettles taking over the manure heap.

The pears on the ground are being munched by rabbits and the rat which leaves open wounds for wasps and especially butterflies. Suddenly there seem to be a lot of Commas in the garden.Elsewhere the white geranium, having regrown is flowering and appreciated by the hover flies.

R's favourite small sedum is tumbling out of the new rose bed and the anthems are flowering again. Talking of the rose bed, it has been taken over by aquilegia seedlings. That is something that will need to be remedied. I mean where am I going to put the eremurus (fox-tail lilies) that I bought let alone the Tulip fosteriana Madame Lefevre. (A favourite of my mother.)

Now for an interesting tip - R burned her wrist on the Aga the other day so she turned the the alien on the kitchen windowsill, snapped a bit off and applied the sap. She says it stopped all soreness so here is our creature from outer space - an Aloe vera courtesy of HC. The wound is healing nicely. Perhaps all professional kitchens should grow one?

It is only Monday and I have written all the above - must be bored - so I planted 75m jonquils, pruned the yellow climbing rose and took 6 cuttings, did some dead heading (now my knee is sore) and brought in the camera. All rat and rabbits, one hen pheasant, one magpie, one pigeon and then - a badger!

Friday and it is raining again - torrents from heaven - this one is called Lorenzo (?after Jorge Lorenzo?).
All in all a blue week - lost my wedding ring somewhere. 😟

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.