Even after all the leaves have fallen there is still so much interest to be had from coloured bark and stems. These show up much more during the winter with the low angle of the sun highlighting them.
Autumn’s Pyrotechnics.
What a difference a few weeks makes, just a couple of weeks ago, the garden was mainly green with highlights of colour from the flowers. The month of October has been fantastic!!
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Tagged Acers, azaleas, Beech, Cornus, Cotinus, Hamamelis, Horse Chestnut, Miscanthus, Prunus, Silver Birch
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Natures Harvest
So many flowers turn into berries, which then become food for all the wildlife visitors to the garden. This abundant harvest can make all the difference to the animals and birds who spend the winter months with us.
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Tagged Arum, Berberis, Cotoneaster, Honeysuckle, Horse Chestnut, iris, Ivy, Leycesteria, Lonicera, Pyracantha, Rosa glauca, Sambucus, Viburnum
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Life after death
Sculpture in the garden is provided by the many seedheads that are left when flowering is over. Sometimes the seedheads are just as interesting as the flowers and they last a lot longer.
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Tagged Acer, agapanthus, Allium, Angelica, crocosmia, Evening primrose, Fennel, Nigella, poppies, Stipa gigantea.Phlomis
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Natures Art Work
Nature provides its own art work in the garden all the time but after a shower of rain shrubs and flowers look so beautiful when they are glistening with rain drops in the early morning light
Late Arrivals
From the middle of August the woodland floor comes to life again with the flowers of Cyclamen hederifolium, some deep pink, some pale pink and others white. One of my white cyclamen corms is now huge, it was one of the first plants we put in when we moved here 20 yrs ago.
More flying colours
I spoke too soon when I said that we hadn’t seen any Tortoiseshell butterflies at the beginning of August. We are now inundated with them! As soon as we step into the garden clouds of them fly around before landing again, usually on various buddleia or verbena bonariensis.
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Tagged Brimstone, Cabbage White, Gatekeeper, Holly Blue, Ringlet, Small Skipper, Tortoiseshell
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The garden of Eden
We had a wonderful day out with our son and daughter-in-law at the Eden Project in Cornwall recently.
The weather couldn’t have been better and the flowers in what is now called the Outdoor Biome were bringing in the bees and butterflies in their hundreds. It was wonderful to see them all foraging for nectar and pollen. There were masses of sunflowers crawling with bees and hoverflies, it was a beautiful sight.
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Tagged Biomes, Eden Project, Mediterranean, Tropical
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Feeding the inner man
Over the summer the fruit and vegetable garden has been in full production. When we got back from Austria we were greeted with an explosion in the fruit cage. Everything needed picking so that job was a priority. Gooseberries, black and red currants and rhubarb all needed picking at once, half of which was put in the freezer waiting to be turned into something delicious , the other half we thoroughly enjoyed as ice cream, sorbets and fools! The last of the strawberries were eaten by the neighbours who came to do the watering while we were away – with our permission, I hasten to add!!!
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Tagged broad beans, cooking apple, courgette, garlic, onions, raspberries, runner beans, sweetcorn
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Over the garden wall (2)
We have recently got back from a long weekend in Wiltshire – the main purpose was to find Dryas octopetela – the alpine flower which we first met on top of the mountains in Austria in July,When I looked it up in the Plant Finder, the Mead Nursery at Brokerswood near Westbury was the nearest nursery to sell it. We organised a few days garden visiting and had a wonderful time, weather forecast was dreadful but it turned out to be better than expected, with just a few showers.
