Autumn is here; the central heating went back on at the end
of September when the chill and damp began to bite, and, despite occasional
warmish sun, the temperatures are definitely on the way down. When autumn leaves begin to fall, there are still things to do in the garden.
First, the leaves themselves: raking them up is only one
part of what needs to be done. The
collected leaves go in the leaf-mould bins – a couple of rolls of fence netting
that was left by the previous owners of the property – and, before that can
happen, last year’s leaf-mould has to be taken out and used. This was a process that made one of our
robins very happy; evidently there was a lot of tasty micro-life in the bottom
of the piles. Some of the old stuff has
been bagged up and will be used as mulch later this autumn, and the rest was
spread on some of the veg beds in place of compost; leaf-mould lacks nutrients,
but a top-dressing of 6X fertiliser should take care of that, and in my hungry
soil any organic matter is useful. Most
of the leaves that have fallen so far are from the plum tree – it always drops
its leaves first – but ash leaves are also starting to come down in the rather
breezy weather that we’ve had recently.
The collected leaves have been mixed with some grass clippings to help
keep them moist and to speed up decomposition; it’s always alarming how much
room they take up, but the level drops quite quickly, making more space for the
next lot.
While raking up leaves, I noticed some interesting little
greenish-blue toadstools in the lawn. I’ve
tried to identify them, but most of the websites I’ve found seem to assume that
the reader wants to kill toadstools in the lawn, or eat them (and I want to do
neither). Anyway, I didn’t find a
description that fits these.
My mulched veg beds are still being disturbed by
interlopers; a pheasant was caught in the act today, pecking at my spinach
seedlings. He was chased off. Perhaps I should put the fleece covering back
on. Not that that would help my turnip
seedlings, which have been munched by slugs.
It’s also time to get the bulbs, other than tulips,
planted. For once I’ve managed to plant
my daffodil bulbs in pots before it gets too late. The mixed miniature daffs (they were a job
lot won in a raffle) have gone in the two big plastic tubs; these rather
unlovely objects are relics of my very early gardening days, and although not
very stylish they can be masked by smaller pots in front, and the little daffs
cheer them up no end. I’ve sown herb
seed, dill and coriander, on top, and they’re now starting to come up; it’s
late for them, but I might get a final crop before the weather gets too cold,
and then they can be pulled out, leaving the way clear for the bulbs. All my ‘Tete-a-tete’ bulbs seem to have
disappeared, but I still have a lot of ‘Elka’, most of which have gone into two
matching Whichford pots.
Another autumn job is clearing the window-boxes and planting
them for some winter interest, and the remainder of my ‘Elka’ daffs have gone
in there. The big window-box hasn’t been
very colourful this summer; the fuchsias and osteospermums in there didn’t
deliver, though there were some lobelia flowers, and the little purple sedum
provided additional interest. For winter
colour I’m mostly relying on foliage, with a mix of small golden euonymus
plants, bronze sedge, a newly-acquired Heuchera ‘Cracked Ice’ (purple with a
hint of silver shimmer), and two small Phormium ‘Tricolor’ (actually, maybe
this combination is a bit too varied).
There are crocuses (angustifolia, I think) besides the ‘Elka’s for additional
spring colour. The phormiums are a bit
of a risk. Their proper name, I see from
the RHS website, is Phormium cookianum subsp. hookeri ‘Tricolor’, and they’re
in hardiness group H4 which is only borderline hardy here, but I’m hoping that
shelter from the house will keep them from the worst of the cold, and I have
other plants (all divisions of the original) if all else fails. Today they were facing wind and occasional
showers; the wind shouldn’t bother them, as like many New Zealand plants they’re
very wind-tolerant.
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| Big window-box |
The little window-troughs have had their mesembryanthemums
removed – they had pretty much stopped flowering, although they’ve done well
this summer – and some little violas put in their place. These were self-seeders that had appeared
between the paving slabs on the patio, so they’re a bit of a mixed bunch, but
they seem to be mostly the progeny of last spring’s floriferous blue and yellow
violas. I hope they’ll provide some
colour (and for free!).
It’s not quite time to pull up all the annuals. I’m quite pleased with my antirrhinums, which
are still in bloom. They’re a plant that
I’ve been a bit sniffy about in the past, possibly because I’d seen too many
garish colour mixes, but having grown some better varieties I have to admit
that they make good cut flowers; a vase of them, mostly ‘Bizarre Hybrids’, have
been looking good for a week now. The
colour mixes are a little bizarre – I’m not too enthusiastic about the yellow
and pink ones – but overall they have pleased me, and with some of the crimson
and dark red/white ones (‘Night and Day’) they make a good show. Outdoors, the dahlias are still (mostly) flowering - 'Sam Hopkins' produced one bloom and then stopped! - with the 'Bishop's Children' single dahlias looking fine and attracting bees and the last couple of butterflies (a red admiral and a comma).
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| Antirrhinums |
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| Dahlias and yellow achillea |
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| 'Bishop's Children' |
The birds are starting to return to the garden; a female blackbird has been coming to the patio, and a mistle thrush was in one of the ash trees earlier this week.
