Post Comment Love 5 - 7 September

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

Well hello September! Already!

I’m sure it comes around more quickly these days, and I was just getting the hang of August-ing. We finished the month with a visit to a local tropical garden here in Nottinghamshire, which isn’t a normal place for a tropical garden. But it was magical, and my photo this week is looking up through the monkey puzzle tree, which are always a favourite, and one that’s easy to spot!

Have a great week.

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My garden in August

Last month there was plenty of blooms and gardening activity, this month less of that but more of moving pots about and some changes to our garden furniture too. But first, let me share the flowering succulent in all its glory…

It’s great isn’t it? But that’s not all - look at how blue the flowering globe thistles got. Hopefully there’ll be plenty more flowers on this one next year.

August was also the month I finally tackled the new pot and the new olive tree. It’s a big pot, and the olive tree isn’t so big - I mean, it will grow, slowly and will eventually adapt to its new home. It was very reasonably priced at £32 - we looked at many olive trees, and many had much higher price tags.

I was keen to get the pot feet stuck on the pot before we started to put anything inside it. These silicone pot feet are great, but even with fairly big pots they do move a bit, and I didn’t want that to happen with this one, so out came the glue. The other thing I was keen to do before we filled the pot was to check it’s position was right.

And check things like, could MOH cut and edge the grass without moving the pot; what did it look like from inside the house, and obviously from the patio, as well as other key points in the garden. We got there, slower than MOH would like, but this pot is going to be heavy when it’s full and we aren’t going to be moving it much!

I’ll share another post on planting up the olive tree - but we took a couple of days to fill the pot too, as I was keen to see if the levels changed as the compost settled in. It didn’t really, but we didn’t know that.

There’s been a few new additions to the garden this month, including these vintage metal storage boxes which we picked up from the Rutland Flower Show. Even MOH liked them, which is something - slowly I’m winning him over to the mix of new and vintage items! The plan is for these to provide functional but attractive storage in the greenhouse, yes the one I don’t yet have!

I also picked up these Victorian terracotta pots at the Rutland Flower Show. These are bigger than the small flower pot type ones I already have, but not as big as those I use elsewhere in the garden, so size-wise they’re a good addition to my stock. They don’t necessarily help solve my pot crisis, but as they say every little helps.

This month we also said goodbye to our much loved and much used in London but not here sun loungers. They’ve had a good life with us, and we’ve enjoyed having them in our lives but it was time to let them go via the local Facebook group to another family who will I’m sure enjoy them too.

We realised that we were unlikely to use them in this garden, and that they also took up more space than we wanted to allocate them in the garage. Their departure was helped by the fact I saw the garden furniture I swooned over at Grand Designs Live back in May in the sale, and reduced by a third. So that was promptly ordered, and has since arrived - and I suspect that may have contributed a little to the change in weather we’ve seen at the start of September, so sorry about that!

Elsewhere in the garden the little crab apple tree remains laden with apples - it looks so weighed down, that I imagine it will be pleased to shed its load when the apples are picked. I’m debating when the best time to pick them is, but I feel it could be imminent as I’ve seen a recipe for crab apple and chilli jelly which sounds right up my street.

The sweet pepper plant - another purchase from the Rutland Flower Show, a bargain at £5 - is producing more peppers and ripening those it already has. We’ve picked six now, and eaten most of them already. I’m hoping that there’ll still be time for the smaller ones to grow and ripen before the weather changes for good.

You’ll have seen in my This August update that our new kitchen sofa arrived, which meant it was time for the garden sofa which we’ve used in the conservatory in our old house and in the kitchen here, to move into the garden. And it’s been a very welcome addition, as it offers a much more relaxed seating option.

Though it did need more than just moving to the garden. MOH rightly pointed out that initially it looked as if we’d just dumped it there before moving it to the tip, which clearly isn’t the case. When the cushions are out, it’s fine, it looks like it belongs but without them, he did have a point.

So cue some softening with plants - the astrantia and santolini one end, and my Gertrude Jekyll rose the other. It works I think, and has helped ground the sofa and make it look as if it really belongs.

Moving those pots led onto moving more pots. We’ve not really been able to enjoy our plants so much this year as they suffered early on and were in the relative shelter of our heat pump trellis. That changed though with this group of cottage garden type plants moving to the end of the garden close to the crab apple tree.

And with this group of plants moving alongside the back wall. I wanted to try them out in parts of the garden where I think they will end up growing, admittedly not in this exact formation or as close together, but for now as groups of pots. I haven’t moved them yet, so so far the master plan in my head hasn’t failed me.

For this post though, I’ll leave you with two views from inside - both from the same window - of the Gertrude Jekyll rose, and the newly planted olive tree.

It really feels like things are starting to come together, and that we’re starting to claim and make the garden our own.

Walking East Stoke's lanes: August 2025

After racking up a total of zero walks in July, August could only get better in terms of numbers, at least. And it did, with a single walk - but not until the bank holiday, which unusually was forecast to be sunny. Most unusual!

So after not making it down School Lane and to the River Trent in June, it was that direction that we headed in. And with the forecast looking like it might make the high twenties, we headed out earlier than usual. But already look at how blue the skies are.

SCHOOL LANE

There were definite hints of autumn on show - the haws turning redder and redder in the sun (I know that feeling!) and the decaying thistle heads looking majestic in the verges.

CHURCH LANE

CHURCH LANE

But it was great to see the blue skies, with yet more unusual looking clouds.

CHURCH LANE

The lane down to the Trent was the driest we’ve seen for a long time, which given that we’ve had so little rain over the summer months isn’t surprising. It’s very different to the puddle laden lane we walked down much earlier in the year.

CHURCH LANE

But while signs of autumn were visible, it was still shaping up to be a glorious day - and this view of the golden fields through the tree is my favourite view of this excursion. And then I noticed the funghi on the tree.

The verges were still full of flowering cow parsley, which I’m not at all unhappy about.

As we approached the Trent it was clear a lot of the vegetation had been cut down, and it looked as if the jetty might be accessible. We needed to get closer to see for sure.

And it was, I hadn’t expected that. Though this was as close as I got to the water’s edge.

The view as we headed back to the village will always remain one of my favourite views, and we hadn’t even experienced this view before we bought our house - what an unexpected bonus!

As we headed back there were further signs of autumn - the elderberries looked lush and yes, there’s acorns visible in the trees.

It won’t be that long before the acorns are strewn across the path, and again - that’s something I’m not unhappy about. I love to see the seasons change, and I think summer into autumn is one of the most welcome, and most spectacular, don’t you?

Thanks for joining me for this update, if you enjoyed this post you may also like to see all of the posts in this series.