Sun elsewhere

Definitely not the Cotswolds

Back home after a week away in warmer climes, with a backdrop of some very different plants for a change - definitely not the Cotswolds, but I'm including a couple of photos here as they'll be the last summery colour for a while!


The weather here at home was murky when we left, and apparently remained so for a few days before the cold snap set in.  It brought early snow to parts of Europe (the Alps, when we flew over them on the homeward journey yesterday, had a good covering of snow) but only one frost here.  The weather is now chilly and damp, and windy, and likely to remain so for a couple of days at least.

 

The ash trees have now shed all their leaves - it looks as if every ash tree at this end of the village dumped its leaves in our driveway! so that was today's clearing-up job.  The apple trees and the shrubs are still hanging on to theirs.  The flowers are in late-autumn changeover: little left of the summer/autumn display but with the winter flowers not yet out (although the winter jasmine is nearly there).

 

Today's leaf-clearing was accompanied by the clacking of a fieldfare somewhere near.  If late autumn comes, can fieldfares be far behind? but none seen on the apple tree yet.  The green woodpecker was seen making a hasty exit from the apple tree, though.  The apples are small this year, though the cooker did manage one that was over a pound in weight (and would have been more if the woodpecker hadn't been at it!).  A couple of rotten ones left out on the patio were much appreciated by a blackbird today, and a couple of hen pheasants were skulking in the shrubs (apparently hiding from today's shoot) but otherwise there weren't many birds about.

 

A mole has been busy.  Normally we don't get any beyond the bottom of the garden, but one has reached the house; the back-door paving has obviously obstructed his excavations, but he has worked his way along the line of the gap between paving stones, throwing up a lot of bedding sand.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get that back into place!

Falling leaves

Well, the next day was indeed brighter, with a warmer sun.  Applying my usual test - it was warm enough to have lunch outside on the bench.  Since then, there has been a little rain, some wind and some cool sunshine.  The wind brought down a reasonable amount of twigs from the ash trees, and toppled the hazel wigwam supporting Tutankhamun, so he has been pulled up (since the cooling weather would mean he'd be on the way out anyway) and composted.  Next year I must pinch out the young plants properly so that they don't get top-heavy - there was a lot of growth up beyond the top of the wigwam.

The wind has also brought down more leaves, especially today.  Yesterday was completely calm, and so quiet that you could hear the fall of a leaf; but this morning a lot of ash leaves had come down and they continued to fall all day.  There will be good leafmould for next year.  However, as the big ash tree gradually turns bare, it's clear how few seeds there are; this is good in terms of fewer unwanted seedlings all over the garden, but a sign of the bad summer.  Apparently horse chestnuts are also in short supply.

Not much change as far as flowers are concerned; just a few final ones on various plants, although the new Michaelmas daisy has a nice bright lavender-purple flower on it, with maybe more to come.

The blackbirds, who haven't been much in evidence lately, have started reappearing (or maybe they're migrant incomers).  Robins (at least two), dunnocks, a wren and lots of sparrows also around, and today a pair of nuthatches were on the seed container, and a gt spotted woodpecker on the nuts.  Also the marsh tits, which is nice.  The green woodpecker continues his interest in the cooking apples.  I keep listening for the sound of fieldfares, but none yet ...

October Chill

Plum tree, first weekend in October

Mid-October, and the leaves are falling.  The plum tree, whose leaves normally start to turn as soon as the fruit is finished, has only started shedding leaves properly in the past couple of weeks; there are still quite a lot of leaves on the tree even now. 

Nights have continued to be mostly chilly, with a couple of air frosts in the past week, and the other trees have started to shed leaves too: the hawthorn has lost nearly all its leaves, and the big ash tree is dropping quite a lot.  The other ash trees are further behind (as usual - I wonder why?).



Double rainbow this afternoon

The weather picture has mostly been sunshine and showers, the sun often pleasant when it's out but definitely autumnal, and noticeably cooler in shade.  Today, after a cold night, the sun was bright but not warm and, when the showers kicked in, it was quite nippy - in fact we had a hailshower in the afternoon.  A lovely double rainbow though.  Last weekend I managed a quick lunch outside; today I can't say I was tempted.  Tomorrow is supposed to be brighter.

Despite the chill, there are still a few flowers out: the phlox is still in bloom, the perennial cornflower and Japanese anemones have flowers, as does the rose 'Blush Noisette', and sweet pea 'Tutankhamun' is only now slowing down.  Sedum 'Autumn Joy' of course is still at its peak.  There are a couple of self-sown marigolds in the vegetable patch, and the cyclamen under the holly tree.  The nerines are still doing well, and the schizostylus, which I had given up on as it is almost entirely swamped by the euphorbia 'Fens Ruby', has put out a flower spike.  The chrysanthemums are sitting stubbornly in bud, but the Michaelmas daisy is showing a touch of purple.  There are even a few flowers on the big hellebore, and one or two cowslip flowers in the lawn.

A couple of new additions: a new, dark pink, camellia in a pot in the front garden, and an end-of-season bargain chrysanthemum, a huge russet red one, in another pot on the patio.  The latter is seriously potbound, but I took some root cuttings which seem to be flourishing, so I think I've done well there.  Note for next year's planting: it will need to be paired with red/orange/yellow flowers, and/or possibly dark heucheras as long as they don't have too pink stems.  Don't put it near the sedum.  In the pot by the window, the heuchera/dark purple osteospermum/penstemon 'Sour Grapes' combination is working well (now that the orange dahlias are long gone!) but needs some brighter pink in the mix.  And down at the bottom of the garden, I'm very pleased with the bacopa - two plants have almost covered the surface of the big pot, flowered all summer and are still going.  (Pot plantings are on my mind because the order for next year's tulips has just gone in.)

The weather isn't yet cold enough for the birds to feed with great urgency.  The blackbirds are taking berries

Maybe brighter tomorrow

(although it has been a bad year for berrying shrubs), and the bread put out on the patio is mostly attracting sparrows, the robin and the dunnocks (and, from time to time, the fieldmouse).  The green woodpecker is around occasionally, mostly after the cooking apples, and I've seen a nuthatch on the ash tree.  Tits continue to come to the feeders, and the long-tailed tits have been about - the other morning they were in the plum tree and on the peanuts.  We seem to have a little group of three partridges who come in regularly, and pheasants have started to return - probably because the shooting started last weekend and it's safer in here!

One red admiral butterfly today - probably the last of the season.