We don't always have Paris

Heuchera 'Paris' in happier times, with tulip 'Silver Parrot'

Heuchera 'Paris' has been one of my favourite plants in the garden for the past couple of years, with neat and tastefully variegated leaves and bright pink flowers (a more elegant plant than some coloured-leaf heucheras).  It is - or was - in a pot on the patio, with tulips ('Silver Parrot') underneath.  For the last few weeks it has been looking very sad, and I thought it was time to split it and discard the old bits.  It was only when I turned it out of its pot and saw the first vine weevil grub that the truth dawned - we no longer have 'Paris'.  It went in the green recycling bin; the remarkably healthy population of vine weevil grubs were picked out and put on the patio, where the robin was only too pleased to deal with them, and the tulips were replanted in fresh compost.  Another pot also turned out to have grubs in, so the same treatment was applied.  I really need to crack on with working through the pots, checking for grubs and dealing with the bulbs; fortunately the grubs don't seem interested in the tulips, crocus or alliums, so they should be ok.  I also need another heuchera!

Chrysanths, penstemon, sweet rocket and spindleberries

We are now into properly autumnal, and occasionally wintry, weather: some chilly, sunny days but more rain and some strong winds.  The dahlias are turning black so it will soon be time to cut them down and bring the tubers into the greenhouse.  There are still a few flowers in the garden, though, if you look closely: this week's posy is red and yellow chrysanthemums, a couple of blue penstemon and purple sweet rocket flowers, one or two spindly bits of sweet william and a few sprigs of spindleberry.  The autumn leaves are mostly all fallen, but the cotoneaster and berberis at the gate are making a striking final display of their leaves.

Autumn leaves on the big cotoneaster

The cotoneaster berries are attracting blackbirds and pigeons; the berries on the hawthorn at the bottom of the garden seem to be the preserve of the various thrushes.  We had a song thrush and a mistle thrush joining forces to chase off a fieldfare down there; they might all be migrants, I suppose, but it looked very much like a case of British berries for British birds!

Clack-clack, grunt-grunt

Red sky at night

Clack-clack-clack, the fieldfares are back, and active in the garden again, particularly in the cooking apple tree.  Now that we've had a few frosty nights - more December than November - the apples are attracting a lot more bird interest, including the blackbirds and the green woodpecker, but I've picked quite a few big ones and put them into store.  The eating apples have all been picked before the birds can get at them.  Let's hope that the redwings can stay away from the holly berries for a few more weeks so that we can save some for Christmas.  A couple of sharp frosts have brought other birds to the garden, too, including a song thrush and a goldfinch; the goldcrests are also still about.  The clear cold weather has given us some lovely sunsets to enjoy, though we had the first significant rain for some time last night.

Clearing up in the garden is still underway.  A large amount of clutter, generated by home improvements and stacked by the garage, has been disposed of in a skip, and one of the big piles of firewood, which has been sitting on the drive covered for a couple of years by a tarpaulin, has been dismantled and stacked in its proper place in the logstore.  I was concerned that we might disturb the mice that had been living in there, but there was no sign of them, only the dessicated corpse of a long-dead rat (ah the joys of country living).  Our tidying up of the logstore area delighted the front-garden robin, who helped us by inspecting our work at close quarters and disposing of any buglife he could find; he's even confident enough to turn his back on us while we work quite close by.  Not all of the garden's residents were so pleased.  I was bagging up the ash kindling that had been piled randomly in the log store when I became aware of some bad-tempered rhythmic wheezy grunting from close by; it turned out to be coming from the angle between the logstore and the greenhouse, where some garden furniture is stacked on a pallet under another tarpaulin.  A peek under the tarpaulin didn't reveal much, but under the pallet was a pile of old leaves; they couldn't have blown in there by themselves, and my guess is that a hedgehog has made a bedroom in there.  He obviously didn't take kindly to being woken up, so I left him to it.  I hope he stays around; I haven't seen one for some time, but we do get droppings in the garden that I take to be signs of hedgehog activity.  There are plenty of fallen leaves in the garden so I may push a few more into his corner to help him hibernate.  I left him a few of the birds' suet pellets as a peace-offering.

I'm still trying to deal with all the fallen leaves.  This autumn has been unusual in that there hasn't been the normal amount of wind, which has meant that the leaves have dropped from the trees straight into the garden instead of being blown down into the field.  The leaves are too valuable a resource just to dump in the wheelie bin, but for the moment I'm having to sweep them into big piles wherever I can accommodate them.

Some late flowers

Down in the ash-leaf-covered vegetable garden, the broad beans are continuing to do well, except for three that rotted in the ground.  This worked out very well; I had had three beans left in the packet after sowing the two rows, and I planted these in home-made roottrainers (toilet roll inner tubes) in the cold frame.  They have now plugged the gaps in the rows.  There's garlic waiting to be planted out; for once there's a bed prepared for them already.  In the greenhouse, the bubblewrap is up and the heater on (my new thermometer tells me that the temperature dropped to 3.9C one night, but that's just about ok, although the houseplants should really come indoors now).  I've brought into the greenhouse some pots of freesia bulbs that I'd more or less discarded outside as they didn't seem to be doing anything, but they have promising-looking leaves so I'll give them another chance.  Out in the garden, the dahlias are still flowering; they, and a few yellow chrysanthemum flowers, are still providing a few blooms for the house (and a few last Centaurea montana flowers made it in there too).  We'll soon be down to the winter-flowering shrubs, though; it won't be long before winter is here properly.

Clearing up

Spindle 'Red Sentinel'

I don't 'put the garden to bed' for the winter, but some clearing up is necessary around this time of year.  Mainly it's autumn leaves, which is a continuous job at the moment.  Yesterday I raked them all off the lawn, but overnight it was particularly chilly and by this morning there was a thick carpet of yellow ash leaves from the two trees at the side of the garden (the big ash at the bottom had already dropped nearly all its leaves), so there's a lot more work to do.  The two leafmould containers are full and there are bags of leaves waiting for the levels to drop so that I can add them too.  Other shrubs have also started to shed leaves since yesterday - the rose by the patio, the dogwood, the spindle (Euonymus europaeus 'Red Sentinel'), even the buddleja.  Only the apple trees are resolutely staying green.  The spindle has had lovely colours this year, and its pink and orange fruit really add to the display, but they won't last much longer I fear.

The weather has continued mostly dry, in that it hasn't rained much, although we've had some fog and low cloud which means damp air if not actually drizzle.  There have also been some lovely autumn days too, with surprisingly warm sunshine and blue skies - but cold out of the sun.  Nights are now starting to turn very chilly, with frost forecast for tonight; all the half-hardies have been taken into the greenhouse and the heater turned on.  I'm starting to look out the bubblewrap to get the greenhouse ready for the winter.

Spiders' webs on the plum tree

The low sun yesterday highlighted the spiders' webs beautifully, especially on the plum tree, which turned out to be festooned like a Christmas tree with webs - it was quite spectacular.  It probably explains why we've had visitations of several goldcrests picking over the trees, clearing up in their own way; a pair were working their way around the purple-leaved prunus by the pond the other day.  A pair of bullfinches also passed through, and there are fieldfares and redwings around, although I haven't seen any actually stopping by the garden.  The sparrowhawk also came by, flashing across the patio just at the height of the fat ball feeder, using the birdbath as cover for its approach (fortunately there were no birds on the feeder at the time); I've bought a taller pole to hang the feeder from, so that birds will have better sight of any danger (it also raises the feeder above the level at which the occasional wandering dog can access it!).  The sparrows are the main users of the fat ball feeder, although all sorts of tits (blue, great, coal and long-tailed) have also been there recently, and the robin and dunnocks pick up what gets dropped.  The front-garden robin has been carefully watching any activity on his patch, including flying into the garage when the door is opened up; I expect there are a lot of spiders in there too.

If spiders are proliferating, butterflies are on the wane.  There was a lone red admiral enjoying the sun on some ivy a week or so ago, and yesterday a male brimstone fluttered by - probably the last butterfly of the year, as it was the first of the year back in the spring.

Still lots of apples

The summer vegetable plants have gone to the compost heap, including the courgettes and tomatoes.  The focus is now on the winter and spring crops: broad beans sown two or three weeks back are nearly all up.  My faith in the old pea seeds has been rewarded; they're germinating nicely in their seed tray in the greenhouse, so there should be some pea shoots before long (if the mould doesn't get them first).  The winter green manure is also coming up, despite the age of the seeds.  Don't dismiss the oldies too readily!