Problem, challenge, opportunity ...

Looks dead to me

Problem: most of the pyracantha (Firethorn) on the north wall of the house is on the way out.  It has been here longer than we have, and has three thick stems, rooted in hardly any depth of (very poor) soil in an unloved corner by the electricity meter; in theory it is supposed to be tied into wires on the wall, but both wires and vine eyes need replacing and it's all out of shape.  Large parts of it had to be cut back to accommodate some building work in that area, which didn't help.  And now all the growth from two of the three stems, virtually all of the top growth, has gone brown with shrivelled berries; the growth on the third one, meanwhile, is in the wrong place, all at the top of its stem, and needs removing.  The pruning saw beckons.  The good news is that there is fresh green growth from the bottom; so it's an opportunity to clear the wall, get new supports in place and start training the new growth into better shape.  I think some feeding wouldn't go amiss either.

Nerine

The weather is turning autumnal; there has been some warm sunshine but evenings and nights are cool (the heating is on) and overall it's quite unsettled with a lot of damp (and rain today).  The sweet peas are virtually over (can't complain, they've done very well) and the phlox and Japanese anemones are slowing down.  There are still a few flowers on the pinks, the occasional rose ('Blush Noisette' is still doing well and will go on into December unless the weather turns really bad) and the Sedum 'Herbstfreude' is coming into bloom; the dahlias are still fine, with flowers on 'Bishop of Auckland', 'Ambition' and 'Blue Bayou'.  (I'm still not very keen on the latter, but it does produce striking blooms.)  The nerine is starting to flower too, though there are only five flower stems as far as I can see; I may need to try to thin it out (and again some feeding is called for!).  And a sure sign that autumn is on the way - there are flowers on the Viburnum 'Dawn'.

The first tomatoes have finally turned red (and been eaten, with relish).  The aubergine plants are still there but none have set fruit so I might as well get them out; must sow them much earlier next year.  I also have one tiny pepper on one tiny pepper plant!

There are few flowers left on the buddleja so fewer butterflies have been in evidence, though there are some Red Admirals still around and the Comma was feeding on a rotten apple one day.  The robins are sorting out territories, singing loudly at one another; the one that rules the roost on the drive and front garden has been very friendly (or cheeky depending on how you look at it).  I gave him a present of some vine weevil grubs found in one of the blue echeveria pots (the top growth had all died off and the lack of roots betrayed the grubs' presence), which were gratefully received; I got rid of the grubs and he got a meal.  Win-win.

A rose in the fridge

'Late summer garden'

A rose was in the fridge, and a cut lily in the warmth of the greenhouse in the hope that it would open.  It could only be the run-up to the Garden Society Show.  The rose - the only single bloom in the garden even remotely presentable for a show - made it, just, surviving in good enough state to win first prize (but not lasting very long after I brought it home!).  My rose 'Blush Noisette' supplied a good enough spray for the cluster-flowered class to come second.  The courgettes, having fruited prolifically all summer, threw a sudden sulk last week and I could only come up with three pathetic tiddlers; but the 'Discovery' apple cordon produced enough good fruits to win D an Award of Merit.  I didn't have enough good dahlias to enter them, but some of the 'Bishop of Auckland' blooms featured in my 'Late summer garden' flower arrangement, along with a spray of cotoneaster leaves and berries, some persicaria, parsley flowers and a few supermarket chrysanthemums, and it won 'best in section' to my surprise!

The lily - too late!

Hedychium

The lily, which I had hoped might be one of my Six Garden Flowers, didn't open until two days later (I should have cut it earlier).  It's still in the greenhouse, as it and the hedychium (also now in flower) are providing enough scent to mask the stench of the comfrey tea that I've been using to dose the tomato plants.  The tomatoes aren't a great success; only a very few fruits, of which the first are only now beginning to show signs of turning red.  Sadly the Show doesn't have a class for green tomatoes.  As for the aubergines, there have been a couple of flowers but no sign of fruits; I really need to start them off earlier, I think.

In the veg plot, the courgettes are picking up again (typical!); the yellow ones are more prolific but the fruits are small and very prone to discoloration and rotting off at the flower end, so I may give them a miss next time.  The French beans (planted out very late) are producing a few very small beans, but the runners aren't going to do anything at all.  They are even refusing to climb their supports, which isn't a good sign!  However the leeks have - very belatedly - been bedded out, and I'm giving thought to where to sow the autumn broad beans.  There's also a nice little row of lettuces, protected from the pigeons by a layer of fleece.

Comma - at last

Male brimstone

The butterfly count is improving, with plenty of red admirals and small tortoiseshells, and at last one single comma has appeared.  There has also been a male brimstone and a speckled wood.  A large dragonfly has been about (moving too fast for identification), and I found a grasshopper one day.  There have also been a lot of craneflies, which apparently are abundant this year.  Something has been attracting the swallows and housemartins, which have been feeding over the garden a lot lately.  The garden birds are becoming slightly less interested in food put out for them; presumably there's a lot of natural food available at the moment.  The sparrows have been eating the elderberries (from a self-sown tree by the house that really isn't meant to be there; I need to get it out!) and the robins seem to be finding minibeasts on the lawn.  The willow warbler and juvenile bullfinch have both been here again, and the nuthatch has been tapping away in the trees.

The weather has been up and down, with some warm and sunny weather over the past two days making up for a couple of quite depressingly wet days on the last two weekends.  Overall it has been very humid, just the thing to bring on an attack of mildew ....

Summer's lease

September is officially autumn, and, although the daytime temperatures are still mostly good, summer does feel as if it's winding down - dew on the lawn in the mornings, spiders' webs around, leaves starting to lose their greenness; cooler at night, the greenhouse closed up in the evening.  The plum tree, always the first to drop its foliage, is regularly surrounded by a sprinkling of leaves, and the flowers on the sweet peas are coming less thick and fast.  They've been providing a posy for the table regularly all summer, and there are still enough to do that (just), but I've also starting cutting dahlias and other blooms: this week a few 'Bishop of Auckland' and 'Ambition' (the only two to flower so far), with Astrantia 'Hadspen Blood', Cosmos 'White Knight' and a few sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis).

Sweet peas for the table

Dahlias, astrantia, cosmos, sweet rocket

Ipomoea 'Carnival of Venice' (with bee)

One floral success this year has been the striped Morning Glory 'Carnival of Venice'.  I planted a few to climb through rose 'Gertrude Jekyll', and while the rose hasn't particularly benefitted from being swamped by its neighbour, 'C of V' is doing very well indeed.  I hope I'll be able to save some seed from it.

Apples have just started to ripen enough to deal with any windfalls; a few apple tart slices went into the freezer today.

The mystery of last week's feathers seems to have been solved: some of the feathers further down the garden were darker coloured and I suspect the victim was a woodpigeon - perhaps a youngster, as there was a single juvenile around the other day and there are usually two in a brood.  Might explain why so many of the feathers were white.

Another sign of summer's end is the arrival of a couple of our usual autumn visitors - a squirrel, after the hazelnuts, and a green woodpecker.  This year's Woodie is in full adult plumage - usually it's a juvenile - and, as usual, he pretends to be after the ants in the lawn, but these are only a starter before the main course, which is apples in the cooking apple tree.  There are plenty there, so I can't complain too much,  Usuallly the surplus apples are kept to feed the blackbirds in the winter anyway,

Having said last week that I hadn't seen a meadow brown butterfly this summer, this week one - but only one - turned up on the borage.  Or maybe it was a gatekeeper (they're very hard to tell apart).  There's a good comparison of the two on this week's RSPB 'Homes for Wildlife' blog, so if I see it again I must take a closer look.