October seems to have been a wet and windy month but it has certainly been a busy month for me resulting in not much gardening time and of course with the evenings drawing in things aren’t going to improve until the Spring.
I’m amazed at how much the succulents have filled out in the trough in the front garden. I was worried when I planted it back in the spring that I hadn’t included enough plants but now I am far more happy.
Here it is in situ and I am again pleased with how well the succulents planted in the border have done. I do need to lift the Aeonium but I am going to risk the other succulents.
The staging area is entering its winter period and is currently home to various pot of mixed alpines. There are also a number of tender perennials in pots that are being collected here ready to overwinter storage. This area continues to work well and keeps my rapidly growing and eclectic collection of plants in some order.
The patio border is now loosing its summer clothing but I know that there are lots of bulbs waiting to appear come the spring and this is one of the first areas I am going to tidy this weekend. It is definitely more balanced since I moved the edgeworthia to the left which just shows you shouldn’t shoe horn plants into spaces rather than make an appropriate space for them.
I need to do some tweaking to the Big Border on the right of the path. Its just a case of re-positioning some of the plants so the lower ones hide the legs of the taller ones. I find that planting a slope, as this part of the border is, quite challenging as you not only have to take into account the view from the front of the border but also how the plants relate to each other as they go up the slope and in this case the border is also viewed as much from the back so in fact it is a sloping island bed – what a ridiculous idea! I am still pondering moving the Cotinus at the end of the border. Its rather large and whilst I know I can prune it I think the rest of the border will work better without it so I am considering a new location for the shrub.
The far end of the Big Border is quite shady and home to several spring flowering woodland plants and a small Magnolia but I need to add some interest for other times of the year – maybe improve the foliage textures and find something to go in the bare patch in front of the magnolia.
Finally my favorite part of the garden – the new seating area. Its looking a little messy as I have added some fine gravel from the greenhouse which might not have been the best idea but with use the small grit will work its way down between the larger stones and hopefully it will look OK. The tin bath pond is being emptied over the winter and I will start again in the spring once I have decided what plants to use in it. It has had Zantedeschia in it but they won’t overwinter in the pond so I will probably store them overwinter under cover.
I think there is still a lot of interest in the garden but mainly from foliage which is rapidly becoming more important to me than the flowers. I do think that there needs to be some stronger structures included to give it winter interest so I will have a think about this over the coming months and see what ideas I can come up with.
If you would like to join in with the End of Month View meme you are very welcome. There are no real rules, you can use it as you want. You can feature one area through the year or you can do a tour, whatever. I do find it is very helpful in making you look critically at your garden but also it helps you to see how things have changed and improved over time. All I ask is that you put a link to this post in your post and add a link to your post in the comments box.
