End of Month Review October 2016

As September ended I mused that Autumn was holding its breath, It has now started to exhale.  There is now a real feel of Autumn in the garden and I would go so far as to say it is a good Autumn.  The color is very good this year but, there has to be a but, it has been a bit on the dry side.  On the day I took the photographs for this post I had to water some recently planted shrubs as it was looking very dry around them.
In the driveway the Pin Oak is starting to color up.  Whilst there are still lots of nettles, the small gingko has settled in well and the Fuchsia David (I think this one is David) has also done very well this year. In the front garden the Rhamnus alaternus Argenteovariegata is just a joy.  I know I frequently remark on how it lights up this dark corner, well it does. The Heptacodium miconiodes (now usually referred to as the hexadecimal), has finished flowering and is starting to berry-up.  I have planted it in the Coal Bunker Border.  This border has an unslightly hard to populate middle and I am hoping that this shrub will give it the structure it needs to hold the rest of the planting together a bit more. The Courtyard has had a bit of a re-shuffle.  Some plants have now been relocated into the garden proper.  I realised that unintentionally at first, this area has become a nursery area for small shrubs not quite big enough to fend for themselves in the garden.  This has been very useful to a) keep them alive and b) make this hard to use area actually look good.  The Four Sisters are doing very well and yes we are entering Edgeworthia-watch time of year. This year it is covered in flower heads, I am so excited at the prospect of it flowering well in the Spring.  Which in turn means I am also anxious that we do not have a hard winter and that I lose it. The fernery is doing very well, the ferns have settled in and grown more than I had hoped in their first year.  It has been a good use of a difficult corner. and just to the side of the fernery is one of the hamamelis, the Cornus mas and the Illicium simonsii who are now maturing well into good sized shrubs. The Wild Garden is one of my favorite parts of the garden in Autumn.  The trees color up well and I find it restful to stop for a moment. I sit on the bench at the top of the garden and watch the leaves fall.   This is one of my Aldi acers.  It is in full color now and is a great little tree.  I don't know which one it is, hence it being a bargain from Aldi, but it has grown really well and has been worth every bargain penny. This is Bruce standing guard over a very sad looking Pinus mugo bought this time last year.  It was doing really well in the Courtyard until the other day when I noticed it was looking a bit sick.  At first I feared vine weevil.  I often fear vine weevil, but I tipped it out of its pot and there was no sign of the little devils.  After some consideration I decided it might just not like the shade of the Courtyard and the pot it was in was a bit soggy. So I have planted it into the Wild Garden and I will see if it recovers.  It either will or will not, if it doesn't well it wasn't going to live much longer in the pot anyway.  Time will tell. Meanwhile in the Wild Garden there are holes.  These holes are very annoying, these holes show where I planted some bulbs and the squirrels have hoiked them out again and eaten them.  Grrr. The Borders are looking autumnal, I love the color from the sedums and the grasses. I still have zinnias in flower, and chrysanths.  These chrysanths have been great this year, I have been really pleased with them. I like this view towards the pond.   I thought I had put a bench by the pond for me, it turns out it is a posing place for the cats.  Flossy is taking her turn today.  The beech pillar to the left of the photograph is coming on well, one day it will look like a pillar. I really like this view looking back towards the pond from the house.  You cannot see the pond from the house and that is deliberate, you have to walk around to where the bench is to see it properly.  Another part of this view that pleases me is the top of the pleached hornbeams just to the left of center.  Their autumn color is just starting to creep along them. and the pond is looking really quite clear but also really quite low for this time of year, that is a little worrying.  I tried out my new waders the other day and removed as much parrot weed as I could.  There is still some but much less than there was last year.  One day I will completely defeat it.
Thanks as ever to Helen for hosting this meme.