Whilst clearing the contents of the cutting beds, I have sometimes hesitated, holding back the secateurs and erring on the side of caution and leaving some of the annuals a little longer; calendula have fallen into this category although really they are way, way past their best. Sadly, having saved seed last year, they have melded into a ubiquitous yellow from cross-pollination, although there has been an occasional hint of the distinguishing features of Indian Prince and Snow Princess. I shall be buying fresh seed for next year!
It made sense, I thought, to put them out of their misery and cut the remaining flowers for a Monday vase, allowing me then to cull the plants themselves. Once cut, there weren’t really enough for anything other than a small posy, so I added some yellow single unnamed dahlias and a few barely open buds of Dahlia ‘David Howard’, as well as some self-seeded nasturtium from one of the bold borders. On the cusp foliage of Heuchera ‘Kassandra’ provided autumnal support, along with a handful of fallen leaves from Amelanchier lamarkii.
One of the less obvious joys of the autumn season is the culling of spent plant material, piling it onto the compost heap and knowing in a year or so it will become a valuable resource for the garden, enough to mulch every border with some left to bag up and use to enrich conditions for specific plants. The 2021 heap is currently piled high above its retaining slats but will quickly drop back as the composting process begins, and a quick peek at the 2020 heap shows a gloriously dark and crumbly mix ready and waiting to be used.
The phrase ‘pushing up daisies’ refers to something being dead and buried; composting my daisies, however, and all the other spent plant material in the garden, instead brings new life and enrichment from what was once dead, just another of Mother Nature’s tricks.
Is there anything avoiding the compost heap in your garden that you could pop in a vase and share with us today? If so, please leave the usual links to and from this post.
There has been a lot of snipping going on around here recently, with cutting back, down or out beginning in the borders during the week but, more excitingly, our neighbours on the hedge side had workers in the garden today working on the hedge. When the Golfer began cutting our side some weeks ago they told him of their plans, which involved reducing the height of the hedge by about 18″, sometime ‘in October’. In many places the hedge is just too wide for the Golfer to reduce it himself, so this was welcome news, especially as for many years there has been little in the way of maintenance on their side. October was fast disappearing so we were relieved when their workers turned up today.
Even though there was some residual colour in the ‘rainbow border’, I wanted to ensure the bed was ready for the appearance of the snowdrops in the winter months, so removed the summer annuals earlier in the week, leaving the border looking very empty after more than five months of colour:
Removing what was essentially ground cover exposed not only residual snippets of holly from the Golfer’s recent hedge cutting, previously hidden amongst the foliage, but also some tatty hellebore leaves and a number of pots of snowdrops which have pushed themseves above soil level and will need to be repositioned. The hellebore foliage will be trimmed in a few weeks time, a task which I now see the benefit of, as it allows the blooms to be viewed clearly, as well as reducing disease.
Talking about snowdrops, whch we increasingly will do in the coming months, I checked on the progress of some of my early flowering ones and – whohoo! – we have visible (but, sadly, out of focus) progress, from Foursome (left) and Cambridge (right)…
Not all annuals are being taken out yet, and these Busy Lizzies will carry on being busy until temperatures really drop – what a star plant, and how I missed them when they were not available due to mildew intolerance! Meanwhile, another job for the Golfer is replacing the seat of the rustic bench behind them, which has outlived its useful life.
Finally, cut back earlier in the year when they were severely affected by aphids, these two pots of greenhouse fantasy chrysanthemums have just been moved back under cover again today, where they will no doubt be revisited by the aphids’ progeny, but at least they are not as tall and lanky as they were the previous year…and there are some blooms on the way to grace a few vases in due course:
That’s my snippy six for 
My bulb order from Peter Nyssen arrived yesterday and, like many fellow bloggers, I can now begin to put off planting them…does anybody enjoy this particular gardening task, I wonder? Actually, I don’t mind the indoor planting, and there are several packs of bulbs destined for the Coop; even planting in outdoor tubs is OK, but it’s the ferreting about trying to plant bulbs amongst permanent plants in the border I don’t enjoy. By the way, if you think there is an excessive quantity of bulbs in the order, they aren’t all for me and there are five separate heaps in the above picture – although admittedly the biggest pile is mine!
In the course of border maintenance I wanted to move established Persicaria ‘High Society’ further back in its border, and eventually discovered why it was so difficult to lift – the root shown in the picture below was at least 18″ long and perhaps 2″ in diameter, and having been curved into a U shape, this was just part of it!
Having bought seeds of Cardiospermum halicacabum (‘Love in a Puff’) on impulse earlier this year, I find them distinctly underwhelming, growing no more than 24″ in height and so far only producing a single puffy seedpod, although it does contain two seeds rather than the usual single one. When ripe, the seeds are black and marked with a white heart, so I was too optimistic in peeling open this one.
Having frequently said I never have success with asters, I then found this little example minding its own business in one of the borders. It may only be a few inches high, and these two blooms may be the only flowers it has, but it’s still an aster (Aster ‘Azurit’ if you are interested)!
Many blooms in the garden are increasingly on borrowed time, partly in the knowledge that we could have frosts at any time (although this didn’t happen until early in November in the last two years) and partly because annuals have been doing their thing since June and have every right to feel exhausted.
Accordingly, I didn’t look any further than the cutting beds for today’s vase, choosing single dahlias ‘Twynings After Eight’ and ‘Happy Single Juliet’, aided and abetted by clary sage Salvia viridis in ‘white’ and ‘Pink Sundae’ versions, with a flowering stem of grass Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’. The increasingly tatty clary was cut back some weeks ago and has now rewarded me with fresh stems, a big asset to many vases and posies. Today’s vase is a mottled pink Caithness Glass example, a chip in the rim invisible to the casual observer.
The search for a suitable prop began and was proving fruitless until I chanced upon this little drawing by four year old The Tinker, probably done a few months ago on one of my Grannie Thursdays. The subject is certainly happy, no doubt due to a particularly effective brand of mascara…
I suggested in my end of month post that leaves on the trees had not yet started to turn, but today I notice that some of the witch hazels were indeed beginning to colour up – the one above is Hamamelis ‘Arnold Promise’. Sadly, none of them are sporting large numbers of flowers buds, unlike last year, no doubt due to the relative dryness of the year.
My two ‘fantasy chrysanthemums’ are also budding up, and having spent their summer outside will shortly need to join the nerines in the Coop. They suffered a major aphid infestation earlier in the year and were cut right back, and although re-growing to a more acceptable (in my mind) height I still cannot warm to them in any way – although the flowers, when they do finally bloom, are a pretty novelty. It barely seems worth their effort after all those months with nothing but their relatively unattractive greenery…
Some readers will have noticed a new purchase of clematis (just a few!). I have learned that this is the best time for buying them because earlier in the seaason so many varieties are out of stock. I wanted to buy spring flowering clematis earlier this year to replace some that had failed when the colonnade was revamped a few years ago, but the choice was poor, and on the advice of Thorncroft Clematis, my current chosen supplier, waited till now to try again. Three of the new arrivals are destined for the colonnade, one for the stump of the oak tree where a cheap purchase proved to be a mistake, and one (C rehderiana) has already joined two of its kind in the entrance walkway:
Whilst talking about clematis, I was astonished to see the rootball of the clematis released from the timber planter that hugged one of the downpipes at the back of the house in readiness for planting a new rose; despite the size of the rootball it hadn’t flowered other than in its first summer, but will be rehomed where hopefully it wil make up for lost time.
Further work on the rose planting has been delayed not just because of the dampness of the weather and the other commitments taking up my time but also because I found the route of the soakaway we installed when we built the extension…
Fortunately I do have some spare bricks and a bag of mortar mix, so when time permits my bricklaying skills will be recalled to raise the planting area a little:
I have to confess to feeling uncomfortable spending so little time in the garden – if it wasn’t for weekend visitors I would certainly be out in the rain today catching up on a stack of seasonal tasks, and although the bricklaying would have to wait there are plenty of clematis to plant! The tagline of the blog is ‘nurturing my soul’ and recently I have been aware that the sheer need to be outside and active in the garden is very much a physical thing…my soul is hungry, which sounds very much like the title of a poem, so watch this space!
Every month it’s the same, it no sooner starts than it finishes – or that’s how it seems, as September has certainly gone in the merest blink of an eye. Weather-wise it has been a mild month of sunny periods and the occasional light shower. Overnight temperatures are dropping, but the lowest was only 6°C, and daytime has often seen temperatures in the 20s with a short spell over 30°C. The showers have been welcome, refreshing a very dry garden and bringing 50mm of rain. Still giving colour to the garden are several roses, persicaria, sedum and more, with pots of Busy Lizzies and also the dahlias and annuals in the cutting beds. No real sign of leaf fall yet, but as temperatures start to drop things will change quite quickly.
The woodland is beginning to house more than just early spring treasures now, with arum and Cyclamen hederifolium now adding colour, and a number of new ferns and other woodland plants:
From the bothy at the far end you can look down over the main borders, still leafy and with a smattering of blooms; also shown is the same area from ground level and the adjacent clematis colonnade and bronze heuchera bed:
From there we head through the woodland edge border, viewing it from both ends, before reaching the ‘bold borders’, which I think need to be renamed the ‘Anything Goes’ borders, as however hard I try they are still predominantly pink and purple, with only the occasional splash of something brighter or bolder:
Through the gate to the working greenhouse and cutting beds, the former with a good number of tomatoes still to be picked and plenty of life in the dahlias and some of the annuals still, although I seem to have missed photographing the latter!
Past the blue & white borders to the rose garden, then under the clematis colonnade and through the main herbaceous beds, before heading back to the house past the rainbow border:
Finally, let’s go down the side of the house to have a look in the Coop where there are some nerines beginning to flower and then on to the very overgrown Coop Corner, where the fairly new pink pussy willow dominates the bed and demands some as yet unplanned attention.
The still photos only give you a snapshot of the garden, and will mean more to me as a monthly record than to anyone else. However, if you would like a more rounded picture why not watch the additional video, which may seem a little more hurried than some months as it was raining. You should be able to watch it below or by clicking on 
