In reflection of the things we’ve done in the garden this year, I’ve gotten so much pleasure from the hanging baskets we planted back in April. Every time we leave the house (especially in the mornings before the commute) I look at them and they’ve changed and grown so much over the months. I particularly enjoy the red tinge the ivy plants have taken on this autumn – I wasn’t expecting them to do this but I’m so happy they have. I think it was a good idea to plant these up as evergreen foliage baskets as they look so vibrant now that everything else deciduous in the garden is starting to decay.
It’s made me think that we should start to tackle the small garden area we have in front of the cottage next year; although having said that our foremost concern is to finish off the dry stone wall so that we can then plant that area up. I feel slightly guilty that we haven’t finished that yet but perhaps having to save and plan for the wedding lets us off the hook a little bit.
It’s been a real pleasure watching the autumn colours develop in the garden this month. I don’t think i’ve really appreciated how the light develops from summer into autumn before; the sun hanging lower in the sky at midday really casts the most beautiful shadows. Hopefully once the plants establish themselves over the years to come they will hold onto their leaves for longer – it felt like it was only a matter of days in comparison to the trees in the common. I loved the yellow tones of the silver birch leaves we planted out this year and can’t wait to watch these grow. One of our friends bought us one of these trees as a wedding present so that will be particularly nice to watch mature – we’ve called it Isla after her.
On October 21st we visited RHS Wisley on the most beautiful autumn day I can remember – not a cloud in the sky and quite cold – perfect weather for walking and admiring the seasonal colours. The grasses had to be my favourite; I cant wait to watch the 3 miscanthus sinensis ‘Silberfeder‘ we planted out in our mixed border get established next year.
We planted out lots of bulbs this October in preparation for next spring. We bought a decent bulb planter which made relatively short work of the job; here’s what we bought:
- Narcissus ‘Thalia‘ x 30
- Galanthus ‘nivalis‘ x 50
- Allium ‘Camelion‘ x30
- Allium ‘Nigrum‘ x15
- Alium ‘Mount Everest‘ x6
We planted all these bulbs into the mixed border apart from the snow drops which we planted into the small border adjacent to the pergola. We were careful to choose varieties that flower at different times so hopefully we’ll get a staggered spring display. We also selected different heights and flower sizes for interest.
Final thought – the fatsia japonica we planted out in early spring this year has started to develop flower buds – exciting!