My garden in November

Amazingly there’s still plenty of colour in our garden - some of that is winter colour, but more unusually some of that is from summer plants which continue to flower in the mild weather. It’s good to see the more wintery plants start to shine though, and the bright orange of the flowers on the berberis are always a favourite.

The potted acer, which has grown so well this year, kept its leaves for most of the month. I was glad to get a picture of it when I did, as wouldn’t you know it but the very next day the leaves had completely gone. Not one remained!

The weeds are still there though. And the forget-me-nots. And I’ve weeded, more than once. So these exact ones are most likely not there, and there might have been a temporary reprieve, but as weeds do - some are back. As I said last month, they seem to have been given a burst of life by this summer’s drought. Our hosepipe ban has been lifted, but obviously it’s been too wet to need to water the garden…

The fatsia is another of the plants which shines in winter - these ‘flowers’ are always stunning and are definitely worth having a plant in your garden for.

At the back of the garden on sunny days the pear tree and its yellow leaves have been catching the sun and providing almost a ‘burning’ focal point. That is until the leaves dropped, and all of a sudden that view was bare. One morning over breakfast MOH noticed and wondered why it looked so different all of a sudden. That old thing where things are familiar, until they change and you can’t work out why.

The winter bedding planted up last month is continuing to do well, though the cyclamens are doing much better than the violas which seem to be having a bit of a flowering break. Hopefully they’ll be back - they’re not as bold as the cyclamen though, so perhaps they’re just doing their thing in a more subtle way. Though it’s not really a season for subtlety when mostly the garden is viewed from indoors.

One thing that we’re seeing first hand how it develops is this rosebud which has the tenacity to bud and bloom in November, and to be followed by another bud too. The plants are confused by the weather clearly, even in this pretty sheltered and sunless (at this time of the year) spot.

While out weeding one afternoon I spotted these young nasturtium leaves, which have self seeded themselves here. We had none all summer, but come November there they are. I’m not sure if they’ll last or even get to flowering, especially now we’re having a bit of a cold snap, but we’ll see.

And yes, that is my summer bedding. Still going strong and putting on quite a show to rival the winter bedding. Crazy times.

And finally before I end this post, an update on the trees we had pollarded in the summer. They’re still in leaf where usually they would have completely shed their leaves by now. We’re not really complaining as once the leaves come down, they need to be picked up again and dealt with - but this is highly unusual behaviour for the end of November. It’ll be interesting to see what they do over the next few months, but until then let me know if you’ve also noticed unseasonal behaviour in your gardens.

Digging out my watercolours

I’ve been experimenting. It’s been a long time since I used my watercolours, but I’ve been mesmerised by the many tutorials and reels on Instagram, as well as the fab artwork they seemingly easily produce. So rather than keep watching and wondering what if, I had a go.

I was quickly reminded that it’s been a long time since I used my watercolours, and as you can see they’ve probably had minimal use previously.

But I figured it couldn’t be hugely different to other crafts, even though a paintbrush is perhaps a less familiar tool. So I thought I’d start with something easy and explorative, as well as useful - what colours are what, and how they were different on wet and dry paper. It’s the wet paper approach that had really caught my eye, and it worked well in real life too.

Where I think it really works is with the doodled flowers, which are in pen rather than with a brush. Again they’re rough and unplanned but they also show that that’s ok, and I think this is something that I’ll be exploring further.

It was definitely worth watching some ‘how to’ videos before I started, both for inspiration and practical tips. The most practical tip was to have two water jars, one for cleaning brushes and allowed to get dirty, and the other for applying on the paper and paints. And it’s working. The other tip related to this which is probably even more important is to keep your mug of tea in a separate part of the desk so you don’t dip your brush in that by mistake!

Eminently sensible.

Not feeling quite brave enough yet to go freehand, but wanting to do more than squiggles. I decided my next step would be some ‘watercolour colouring in’ and so I found a design which could be printed. Of course this meant it was on usual printer paper, rather than the paper I’d used for the colour test in my sketchbook, and so it performed differently.

But it worked well enough for what I wanted. The blending is a bit rough, the colours are over the lines - but it was great fun, worthwhile and part of my learning journey. Now I just need to be braver and try something freehand - though I’ll be watching a few more of those tutorials before I start.

I’ve a feeling I’ve a few more afternoons ahead of me experimenting and refining (or picking up) some technique!

My garden in October

In September our garden was still recovering from the drought, this month it’s pretty much there and has discovered it can grow weeds. And lots of them, more than we’ve ever known. I’m sure that’s related to the hot, dry summer but what an unwanted outcome! But - thankfully - it’s not just been weeds. The olive tree which is in a pot had not been itself, but as you can see the leaves are now dark green and glossy again. It’s still bald on one side where it’s been shaded by the fence, but that’s ok as it’s unlikely to get a 360 degree site.

The ferns and the leaves of the Lords and Ladies (the darker green leaves) are looking verdant and fresh, and it’s likely that the unseasonably warm weather this month is helping with that.

There’s been time for some jobs too. The gabion baskets which we use as a log store had been used as a launch pad by the local wildlife as a launchpad to jump the fence and so I’ve used the remaining ‘whirly wires’ to reinforce the top. In the other gabion baskets they’re used on the joins to provide extra strength, so in theory they should do the same for this. They also look pretty good too.

While the weather has been warm, the latter part of the month was pretty wet too. Our neighbourhood has been a bit of scaffolding city, with us and both our next door neighbours, and the neighbours two doors down cladding the exteriors of our houses with scaffolding. Our conservatory provides a view of our neighbour’s scaffolding at the back, though it was the vibrant red leaves which had blown onto the roof which really caught my eye.

The agapanthus, just outside the conservatory windows are also showing signs of autumn. The flower heads remain, and some of the seed pods - but look at the colours and its sculptural elegance.

During the month I bought and potted up some winter bedding. A tray of violas and cyclamen cost just under twenty pounds, and have brought such a pop of colour to the garden. The violas were a large enough pot to be torn into two, so doubling where I planted them. When potting them up, I planted them in and around the yellow summer bedding which was continuing to flower. When that’s finished flowering I can remove them from the pots, though I’m hoping they’ve a good few weeks in them yet - we’ll see.

The other flower heads that I’m leaving on the plant is the hydrangeas. In September I told you they’d turned cream again, this month they’re brown and still as glorious.

Which brings us back to the weeds. They’re in places where we’ve not had anywhere near the number of weeds before that we have now. I’m convinced the number is related to the drought, but I’m not sure how. I’ve noticed that it’s not just our garden - thankfully! And once I’d spotted that other gardens, and public areas are also covered, I started to relax. A little. They’re easy to pull up of course, but I need to get to them before they’re too comfortable and before they seed. And in dry weather!

The photo above isn’t the best quality, but I’m including it here as it was taken towards the end of the month and the hardy fuchsia is still in flower and enjoying the wind (hence the blurring). I think they’re probably still flowering in more normal years, but this year we didn’t see much of them over the summer, so it’s good to see them know.

What is noticeable though is the deepness of colours, the dogwoods are so bright and vibrant - and again that’s good to see. It’s hard to believe that these dogwoods were planted ten years ago as bare root plants. That’s the thing about gardening, it’s always changing and developing, and growing!