Sometimes September and October days bring misty mornings, which are then an excuse to search the garden for spiders webs, spangled with moisture, glistening like diamonds in the early sunshine when it breaks through the mist.
This web was in the purple berberis by the front door. Such a beautiful contruction.
Now it is officialy autumn, the colours of autumn are making themselves conspicuous in the garden. Slowly but surely, the main colour is changing from green to yellow, we wake to misty mornings, which highlight all the spiders webs when the sun comes out. The sun is still hot, when we see it, but we can’t deny any longer that summer has finished and we are now into autumn.
The purple Berberis by the drive changes to red at this time of year, the leaves matching the bright red berries before they fall.
The weather this month hasn’t been the usual weather for September here. Usually, as soon as the children all go back to school after the summer break, the weather improves and September is usually a beautiful month. This time however, it has been rain, rain and more rain, with a tiny bit of sunshine in between. This has made the grass grow, the weeds grow, and battered the plants and flowers. In spite of this, when I went into the garden to take some photos, I managed to find quite a few flowers.
Miscanthus sinensis Malepartus has the most wonderful purple flowerheads when they first come out, they later turn to beige, but I really love them when they are this colour.
Even when in the house, my eye is caught by the butterflies fluttering by, that is enough to send me into the garden with my camera. The weather recently has beem sunny and warm, with not much wind, it has made a nice change from all our rain during August, ideal weather now for butterflies to visit the garden.
Red Admiral on white Buddleia. This is one of our most frequent visitors.
Once again, the ants have been busy in the woodland. It is a while since I have wandered in the woodland, because I know there isn’t anything interesting going on in there at the moment. Suddenly though, I saw some patches of colour showing between the shrubs in the back border and went to have a look, it was enough to send me rushing back to the house for a camera.
Cyclamen hederifolium near the entrance to the woodland.
As far as foliage is concerned, no , it isn’t a washout, it means that the foliage is nice and lush, not dry and struggling like it usually is in August. This month is trying to be the wettest August on record I think, with hardly a day going by without a deluge. While wandering round to take my photos, I noticed that autumn tints are starting to show their different colours, which seems rather early, but there are also lots of contrasts looking very happy together. Let’s start with an autumnal feel, though I’m certainly not ready to let go of summer yet.
Amelanchier lamarckii has lost it’s summer greeness and is looking decidedly autumnal.
August has been a very mixed month here for weather, lots of rain, and a fair bit of sunshine, but not enough! In spite of this, plants have been flourishing. Shrubs that normally would have dropped their flower buds for next spring because of a lack of rain, are looking very healthy, with a full quota of flower buds, next spring should be very colourful! we should be thankful for all our rain.
The chinese ginger jar has had a summer haircut and stands out nicely from the flowers behind. I think I need some white in the background in the space that has been left when I removed a shrub that was suckering everywhere!
A few more alterations have been made recently to the gravel garden at the back, and a few more extras bought to “prettify” it. As you may remember I started altering this area as a place for the undergardener to sit in either the sun or shade, but sadly those plans didn’t come to fruition.
At one time I put this bench under the Pittosporum tree as I like to sit in the shade.
Providing colour all the way through summer and autumn, but never really one of the stars of the garden, is the family of Hydrangeas . There are quite a few different varieties on offer at the garden centres, with new hybrids are being produced all the time.
Hydrangea macrophylla Blue Wave, such a beautiful blue, at the start of the pergola. This variety has large lacecap flowerheads, the actual flowers are very small in the centre of all the showy sepals.
I was amazed when lots of buds suddenly popped up in the border by the driveway. I was delighted when they turned out to be buds of Agapanthus which I had bought many years ago and were being rather slow to multiply. All the books say that they like to have their roots restricted and are therefore good in pots. Maybe their neighbours have now grown to such an extent that their roots are restricting the roots of the Agapanthus, but , whatever the reason, this year, they have never been so good.
