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

 

Already?

Working in and around nature is a great way to get in tune with the seasons, you tend to notice subtle differences to indicate the start of the next season. 

There's an argument to suggest our seasons are shifting or even becoming less distinguishable from each other with the gap between summer highs and winter lows becoming less pronounced.  With still a month to go until our autumnal solstice (when day and night are of equal length) its surprising to see signs of autumn already upon us.

As a child I remember collecting Horse Chestnuts from the trees in a local park and subjecting them to all sorts of treatments to try and make them hard enough to reign supreme in the playground.  I'm certain this ritual was always in late September early October yet here I am looking at Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) seed that I found on the ground in mid-August.

 

Autumn crocus in flower a whole month early.

 

There are lots of other signs, well developed beech husks (Fagus sylvatica) are evident in our parkland along with swelling Sweet Chestnuts (Castanea sativa).  A healthy portion of blackberries (Rubus fruiticosus) has been finding its way to the chef on a weekly basis much earlier than usual and certain to be followed very soon by pears. The later flowering plants are out in their full splendour and have been for some time, while the Delphiniums, Lupins and Foxgloves are a distant memory we can bask in the bold earthy colours of the Rudbeckia and Heleniums.  Some annuals are still happy to provide colour such as this Cleome and Sunflower.

 

 

 

 

Harvest is a favourite of mine and the time is upon us to start thinking about squirrelling away reserves of food to get us through the coldest of months when produce is at a premium.

 

Onions are in my opinion are such an underrated crop. Present in so many dishes regardless of culture these easy to grow and store bulbs are a staple of any winter storage cupboard. For an early crop next year plant Japanese overwintering onions in September to help bridge the gap between this years harvests and next.

 

The final curtain has by no means come down on summer yet but there is definitely reason to get excited about some of the joys that autumn brings with it.

It's in autumn we witness the unveiling of the clandestine pigments hiding in the leaves only to be revealed when the green chlorophyll has had its fill.

The lower more diffused light certainly puts a more romantic slant on everything and provides much more dramatic shadows than we've been accustomed to these last few months.

 

I for one will be making the most of the remaining long warm days before its time to split wood, make bonfires and dig out the Halloween costumes.