Last weekend the weather was just glorious; now we are plunged into more typical November blues. But I'm so glad that I cut our little lawns on Saturday morning and was able to capture them immaculate, bathed in the wonderful light of autumn. This is an unusual view for the garden, one I rarely capture. I had to go up into the main street and look down over the wall where our car is parked. But it's the view of the Mirror Garden that everyone who wakes up in our spare bedroom and goes out onto the little Juliet balcony can enjoy. And my, did I enjoy it on Saturday! 
The person occupying our spare bedroom looks to the left and sees this ... 
If he or she looks down to the Mirror Garden (as long as I've mowed the grass!) this is the outlook ... 
Further down in the garden, a view along the now sleepy Long Border. To the right, my four little Amelanchier lamarckii, planted last winter on the edge of the drop down to the Hornbeam Gardens, so that their blossoms will look as if they are floating against the dark woodland in spring. This is the first taste of their autumn color. 
Looking up to the balcony of the house, through the foliage in the Vine Garden, this is the level we call the Iris Garden. Roses 'Souvenir de la Malmaison', 'Blairii No. 2' and 'Pierre de Ronsard' all live here, and they've been a bit plagued by powdery mildew this summer. Also where I celebrate crocuses (I refuse to say 'croci) in the spring lawn. 
Autumn light is always the most beautiful, isn't it? Even if difficult for your average photographer (like me) to catch. Here I've been enchanted, while weeding on my hands and knees, by Verbena bonariensis ... and not for the first time. 
I can't believe how long Echinacea 'White Swan' has been flowering. But I fear for some divisions I made in July when I read it was 'the right time'. The transplants have no leaves now! 
We don't know what to do with this monster hollyhock. How to control a plant that knows it's got it good? I noticed that it was the only color I value in the hollyhock clan and put it in the newly dug Long Border. And it 'just growed'. I've cut it back four times this year, and still it flowers. If only I wasn't such a garden walkover ... 
My new little helenium sweetie, 'Moerheim Beauty', now in the fifth (?) month of flowering and still giving its best. Here with a bedding salvia, Salvia farinacea, kindly given me as plugs by a friend back in May. 
Autumn is the time to really revel in the grasses, isn't it? Those who have never fallen under their spell don't know what they are missing. I have little Stipa tenuissima and gigantea coming on from seed, so I'm starting to reclaim some of the glorious grasses I enjoyed in the past. This is a lovely newcomer, Miscanthus 'Morning Light'. Its first year in the garden, but I expect great things of it in the future. 
Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' is still confined to one pot on our steps, but I'm looking forward to letting him rip next year. 
With all that wonderful landscape, you'd imagine that we lived in a castle. But this is my front door. Rather modest, isn't it? (Although modest in a sixteenth century kind of way.) Hollies are another tiny passion and this little baby by the front door is my first here - a very ordinary I. aquifolium 'Argenteomarginata'. Why are silver-variegated hollies always much more difficult to get hold of than the gold? I imagine the holly genes are geared for yellow and the silvery types are slower growing ...He's performed rather well over two years in a pot (a third as big again now). I'm really hoping to push the boat out in the garden with some holly topiary. A happy weekend to all who visit!
