The garden at the end of November reflects my state of mind at the moment. Slightly chaotic and dishevelled! It has been ridiculously mild but over the last few days very wet and windy. So mild that I am struggling to re-engage with the fact that Christmas is but 4 weeks away. Thanks to work and the weather I probably spent less than two or three hours in the garden in recent weeks which probably hasn’t helped with inspiration for blog posts. Hopefully, we will have some drier weekends soon so I can have a bit of a tidy-up.
I am pleased with how the planting along grass pass is progressing. The addition of the grasses, Anemanthele lessoniana, have given a real sense of cohesion to the planting. The majority of the plants you can see, if not all of them, are evergreen so it should look like this all winter with emerging shoots for the spring bulbs adding additional interest over the next month.
The planting along the bottom path is more deciduous so the agapanthus foliage will disappear soon and the roses will lose their leaves but again my predilection for foliage means that there is still interest, in this case from the Melianthus major. I am hoping that with the mild Autumn we have had this plant and the one by the workshop will flower over the winter. I could do with doing a little more dead-heading and tidying of decaying foliage but there isn’t that much to do at the moment.
The bottom path curves round to the edge of the original woodland border. You can see I have done a little tidying here mainly because I have planted a number of bulbs in here and needed to clear some space. It is strange that when planting bulbs everywhere I go to plant them is already occupied with bulbs but come the spring there seems to be gaps all over the place. I need to make some better records and notes this spring I think.
The other end of the woodland border which was very bare last year but is now bulking up well. You can see ‘mega bin’ in the background – my new vast compost bin which is a delight to use. I need to tidy up in front of it and plant some shrubs or put in some sort of screening but I haven’t got around to thinking about that yet. Again I have added lots of narcissus bulbs in here as well as some white variegated honesty so hopefully in the Spring it will look magical.
I don’t think I have got the viewpoint for this photo quite the same as in previous month but it was quite wet and wild. What is interesting, to me, in this photograph is how bare the boundary behind the workshop is. My neighbor has replaced the fence at the end of his garden and to do so he has cut back a big bank of leylandii and other scrubby things so there is more light coming into my garden.
And I shall end with the shot up the first set of steps to the workshop. Again there are lots of evergreen foliage to give interest. I have to say that I didn’t have a plan to include lots of evergreen plants it has just happened over the last year or so probably due to my fascination with interesting foliage.
So that’s my garden at the end of November. To be honest looking at the photographs with a cold clinical eye it isn’t too bad given the time of year and a lot better than this time last year.
It has been a real delight that so many bloggers have chosen to join in with this meme over the years and I do hope you will continue to do so and find it useful. If you would like to join in there are no rules just a request that you link to this post in yours and leave a link to your post in the comment box below.
Next month there will be an End of Year View showing how the borders have changed during the year.