Fair enough!

 

With just over a month left of our visitor season the garden is beginning to reveal more and more of the autumn hues that we are all so familiar with at this time of year.  Some of the less conventional plants are giving up pods and seeds offering excitement for the horticulturalists both on our team and amongst the visitors.  I takes just seven years from seed to flower for a Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox), if you fancy a go at growing one ask one of our gardeners for a seed or please get in touch via our comments section.

 

 

 

A successful first year's growth of our Vines (Vitis vinifera) leaves us in a perfect position to prune a framework for future crops now that they have started to put down good roots. We are toying with ideas for signage in the vineyard, please let us have your comments regarding our prototype bottle sign. 

 

The Genus Asteraceae provide more than their fair share of flower at this time of the year. Rudbeckia, Helenium, Galardia and Echinacia to name but a few, if your garden is looking tired at the moment these are all good plants to add thinking toward the future. 

 

There are plenty of seed heads present in our perennial plantings which is great for the charms of finches that fly regular sorties to gorge on the botanical banquets. Try to leave some seed heads in your garden as they tend to look great in the frosts and help to feed the birds through the winter when food is scarce.  If you must execute an annual "hack back" bundles of stems tied up and dropped under a hedge make great homes for beneficial garden beasties.

 

 

 

If like us you are trying to wring every ounce of colour out of your plantings then I'm sure you will be aware how important dead heading is.  Sweet peas (Lathrys odoratus) respond brilliantly to the procedure and will keep producing flower right up to the frosts.  A good tip is to leave just a few pods perhaps out of view so that you can harvest them when dry and brown.  The seeds inside these pods can be sown immediately to produce plants to overwinter in cold frame, these should give you an early flowering.  Alternately you could save the seeds in a dry paper bag in your fridge until spring when they should be treated as the half hardy annuals that they are.

 

This weekend we host our annual Plant fair, this event is a must for garden lovers, we shall have a host of excellent local nurseries and growers in attendance to help inspire your gardening aspirations with their wares and wealth of knowledge. We hope to see you there.

 

 See the exhibitors list and details in this link Plant Fair