Post Comment Love 3 - 5 October

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.

Happy October - the months are flying past right now aren’t they? I definitely think the year’s picked up some speed as it’s gone on. We’ve a busy few weeks ahead of us, with things we’ve planned all seemingly happening around the same time.

My picture this week is from our visit to Scampston’s Walled Garden in Yorkshire last weekend. Isn’t it cute, though I’m sure MOH is already shaking his head as this may have given me a new idea or two!

Have a great week.

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My garden in September

Moving the pots around the garden last month was a big success, we have had a few more roses but mostly the pots have added some interest, if not flowers, to our view while we’ve made full use of the garden sofa while we can. The succulents on the patio, and elsewhere in the garden, have been the story of the garden this summer for me, and a new favourite that’s for sure. I’ve been adding to them, and they’ve been flowering and it’s been great to watch, though I have to find some winter homes for them all - about six or seven pots - in the garage, which is easily double what we had last year, oops.

At the start of the month some new garden furniture arrived - and sadly it’s remained unused and in the garage, which if you read my September update you’ll know that they’ve added to the challenges we’ve had sorting out the garage!

But they were too good a bargain to turn down, and we spent an afternoon ‘birthing’ them from their very large and heavy box. Everything was cable-tied together and the only way to get them out was to lay the box down and pull it out whole - it made us laugh though. The chairs needed a back plate screwing in place, and seven out of eight of the holes (across both chairs) were in the correct place. The final one needed a bit of persuasion, but we got there.

Ah yes, more succulents - enjoy.

We’ve been prepping the garden for the winter months, and this month that’s mostly meant trimming the lavender bushes. All eight of them. Which is a lot of trimming. I’m surprised though that I haven’t managed to take any pictures of them, and they’ve taken a few sessions to get through them all. Though when the garden bin collection happens next time I will have the sweetest smelling garden bin!

There’s other ways I’m noticing that the season is changing, we have many more spider webs in the garden and the daddy long legs are also making themselves at home. I’m ok with this one in the bay tree, much better than them spying on us through the windows!

One of my small roses is still flowering, and still has buds as well as the smallest rosehips. It’s sheltered by the mock orange and hebes which surround it, and so that’s perhaps why it’s still going strong.

Just along from the flowering rose is the pink fluffy smoke bush, which is fast becoming a favourite. We’ve a couple of dark leaved smoke bushes too, but this one in the inside border just makes me smile. I also need to cut the buddleia bush before the weather changes, but not yet as I’ve no space in the garden bin. The butterflies will be pleased by that I’m sure, though I’m spotting them in other parts of the garden too, still enjoying the sun.

Amongst the weeds, and corks, in the bay tree pot I spotted a cyclamen growing - I don’t think I’ve seen one in this pot before, and I was thinking we don’t have any in this garden yet. Well now I have one, but I think I’ll need to add some more at some point.

The rowan tree sums up autumn, the colours, the berries and I love the leaves too. We can see this tree from the house which is great, and while I won’t be doing anything with the berries - other than watch the blackbirds forage them - I do plan to do something with our crab apples this year.

There’s loads of crab apples this year - our little tree also got the mask year memo - and my plan is to make some chilli and/or herb crab apple jelly, though having read the recipe through properly I’ve now ordered a jelly strainer to make life easier - I’ll share how I get on when it arrives. Wish me luck!

Walking East Stoke's Lanes: September 2025

Unlike last month where we headed down Church Lane to the Trent, this month we took two walks down Moor Lane. One at the start of the month when autumn was just starting to make itself known, and then again on the last weekend of the month, where we had an unexpected, and unusual, discovery on the bridge!

But more on that later, let’s start with those hints of autumn - there were plenty of them, and some much more than hints.

There are lots of acorns around this year, which isn’t a surprise as 2025 has been deemed a mast year, which happens every few years - this post from the Woodland Trust (published a few years ago) explains more.

It’s also teasel time - not an official name, just one I made up, but it’s a great time, honestly it is! I love their structure and light prickly-ness, and how they look against the green hedgerow and the sky.

For our second venture out along the same lane we passed a field of cows, which we thought we’d heard a few mornings ago. They were much closer than we thought, and despite their demeanour it didn’t rain.

But there were some amazing clouds and a kite flying above us.

It had rained overnight though - but all that was left were a few puddles on the edge of the lane, some muddy tractor tyre marks and the opportunity to photograph the cloud’s reflections in the puddles.

I’ve a couple of favourite views in our walks from home, and on this walk, this is my favourite tree. There aren’t many walks where I don’t end up with a picture or two of it, and I’m really not sad about that at all.

The hedgerows were even more full of berries and haws than our walk earlier in the month, but we were about to make an unusual discovery. On the bridge, on one side there was a chocolate sponge cake - I don’t know why either, and on the other, what we first thought were stones lined up, but turned out to be chunks of bread.

The bread made us think these had been left out for the birds, or wildlife - though it’s still unusual to leave out a whole jam filled chocolate sponge cake. And maybe it wasn’t as we’d originally thought related to the small, but empty, bottle of Jack Daniels we’d seen much further down the lane, or maybe it was, who knows?!

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.