October decided to be a fairly mild rainy month, every month has been fairly rainy so that seems superfluous to mention; but there have been some sunny days too.
How is the new front lawn doing I hear you ask? I am now a serious lawn-bore, even if you didn't ask I am going to tell you. I check it daily and it is, I am glad to say, growing well.
This dandelion was removed pretty-sharpish I can tell you!
The side lawn is also doing ok, better than I expected bearing in mind the turf was rescued from the skip as off cuts from the main lawn. I did not really expect them to pull through but so far so good. You can see that there is now trellis on the new fence, there is a passionflower and a clematis now in situ. It is exciting times.
Even more exciting is this, this is the Anemone something or other that was planted in front of where the new fence is. It disappeared under the amount of work that happend next to it and I thought it must have been killed yet here it is popping up again. A real sign of hope.
In the driveway the Pin Oak escaped the garden-turmoil and is colouring up wonderfully; this remains one of my favourite trees and I am pleased every year as it develops more and more.
Back to the side of the house and the beloved Ginkgo has grown well this year, it is just hanging on to its last few leaves. It is now sitting where the old Roawn tree used to be so I have prime view of it from the kitchen window. I am not sure if this tree remembers back over 20 years when it was in front of the kitchen window in my old house; it feels the right place for it to be. I am not intending planting it here, though it is tempting; it is far too big a tree to have this close to the house. I need to pause a moment to actually process I have had this tree in excess of twenty years, probably twenty five years - crikey.
Suddenly having all this space by the side of the house has led to a relocation of Richard the gnome and one of my stone cats. I had forgotten that under the ivy there were some large stones and it is the perfect place for the cat.
The backgarden is feeling very autumnal. The large blob of Bramley Tree will soon look quite different as the tree surgeon is coming to prune it back soon. This will add a lot more light into the garden.
It was a glorious sunny day when I took these photographs and Mme Alfred Carriere was flowering her little socks off. Actually they must be quite big socks as she does get rather large! She will get a prune soon too.
One of the best pops of autumn colour at the moment is this Veronia gigantea, it always seem to just appear from nowhere as it is quite unobtrusive until it flowers. I am a huge fan of this plant.
The pale fuchsia, not Hawkshead I think but pale nonetheless, is also having a good year. I have a few f these dotted around the garden. It gets quite big but responds well to pruning.
and late sun means late pollinators. This cistus is a cutting of a cutting of a cutting, they seem relatively short lived so I have taken some more contingency cuttings this year.
I love the views of the Autumn garden, this one across the pond,
This one back down towards the pond from the other side through the Wild Garden.
The Liriodendron trees ae getting quite large, but they are so wonderful, they probably have an equal place in my heart next to the Pin Oak. But will next year be the year that the Liriodendrons flower? They will be about 18 years old next year so it must be time soon? Surely??
The Cercis 'Avondale' I cut down last year is growing well, I haven't the heart to remove it again; I will see how it does.
and the Edgeworthia is budding up nicely, a good sign of Spring.
Do we want to talk about the pond? Well that is the pond, it does have water in it so that is good. It is also choked up to b*ggery so it will be dealt with soon...... soon.....
Take care and be kind.