Full winter kit

 

September spiders' webs

Full winter kit for gardening today; the weather has turned suddenly chilly. 

In some countries temperatures are more predictable, moving gradually from cold in winter, through a warm spring, to a hot summer, and a cool autumn; but British weather can go up and down like a yo-yo.  It’s not at all unknown for midsummer’s day to be colder than New Year’s day.  After our dismal July and August, it suddenly turned warm in early September, falling back to cool, wet and windy; then a fairly sunny and dry spell in early October was followed by heavy rain and, on 14^th October, the first frost of the winter.  The past couple of nights haven’t been quite so cold, but there’s a breeze from the east which is keeping things feeling bitter.  The forecast is for slightly higher temperatures in days to come, but with a storm sweeping in, bringing wind and rain. 

Dahlias: 'Sam Hopkins' (left) and 'Bishop of Canterbury' (right)

Before the cold snap, I cut a vase of ‘Sam Hopkins’ dahlias for the house; Sam has been particularly prolific this year.  So far, the dahlias haven’t succumbed to the cold, and I’m hoping that they might keep flowering for a few weeks yet.  The nerines, sheltered by the overhanging wisteria, are also still looking good, and throwing up more flower spikes than I had realised (nine at the last count).  The sweet peas are still just about in flower but well past their best; only a few (all ‘Fragrant Skies’) survived the seedling stage and I planted them at the end of the row of beans, where they actually did quite well. 

In the dry weather last week, we managed what will probably be the last cut of the lawn before winter.  The longer grass has benefited the wildlife; not only butterflies and other flying insects, but when we’ve been mowing the lawn we’ve seen a number of little frogs and a grasshopper.  One day we found a most impressive-looking caterpillar on the summerhouse wall; the insect book tells me it’s probably the caterpillar of the pale tussock moth.  Very striking; but what was it doing on the summerhouse?

Pale tussock moth caterpillar

The cold probably means that the fieldfares and redwings will be with us soon.  We’ve had several sightings of a couple of little warblers (probably chiffchaffs) around the garden, but otherwise the birds have been our regulars: lots of sparrows, a couple of robins (no longer a pair!), dunnocks, blue tits, occasional blackbirds, collared doves and woodpigeons.  Lefty has been down for a drink a couple of times, but not staying.  His fledgelings, sadly, seem to have been killed (I had to bury at least one of them), but there are a couple of youngsters that might be the offspring of the friendly pigeon pair at the bottom of the garden.  And the pheasants and partridges are back, with small groups of them visiting the garden looking for sanctuary from the shooting.  The partridges in particular seem quite laid back about our presence.

Sparrow flock on the fatballs

Sheltering partridges