September turned out to be rather glorious didn’t it? Well, if you forget that bit of rain, although my garden was very thankful for that because I’ve not been very good at keeping it watered. I’ve been following the tough love approach rather than pandering to it, and while some plants are a bit crispy around the edges, mostly they’re ok.
It’s been great for me that the temperatures were slightly cooler, so I was able to get back out there and actually garden again, rather than just melt in a bit of shade. Seeing the sun on the ferns at the back of the garden can’t help but make me smile.
September has also been one of those practical months. The wildlife - the foxes this time - have made a reappearance, and so, therefore has our sonic fox scarer. It worked before so I’m hoping it’ll work again and dissuade the foxes from taking up residency in our garden. The squirrels continue to annoy MOH with their digging up the lawn antics, they’re oblivious to the angst they’re causing, in fact I’m sure there’s more of them before, so it seems our garden is regularly host to a squirrel nut stashing party.
The little shed is still in its temporary home behind the pizza oven, which I’m sad to say we haven’t lit at all this year. That itself is a sign of how we’ve not been around at weekends, and of how warm it’s been. I mean, let’s be honest this summer standing in front of a fire that’s 400 degrees doesn’t sound like much fun does it?
I’m hopeful that the autumn will continue to be mild and we’ll have time to get it into its more permanent home before the weather turns. Although if we believe the reports we’re having four months of snow this winter, I seriously hope not!
There’s been signs that autumn is well and truly on the way with the delicate mauve of the colchium (autumn crocuses) and cyclamen making themselves known. They’re pretty, but surely it’s too soon…
The foxgloves I rescued from in front of the pizza oven are doing well and are my triumph of the year so far. I couldn’t help but keep taking their picture, and so here’s a few of them looking gorgeous.
They’ll look even more gorgeous next year when there’s flowers. I’ve a feeling one of my new annual tasks will be to rescue self-seeded foxglove plants from MOH’s boots, and I’ll be sneaking them in around the garden just as I have with the ferns. He’s now a fan of ferns, so he’s getting the hang of this free plant thing.
The rhubarb which we brought back from the plot surprised me, I’d left it in a trug out of earth, but still it grew. So as it probably knew best it’s now in a large plastic pot and thriving. So it seems it’s in this pot for a while at least as i don’t want to keep moving it from pot to pot. And I hope that means there’ll be a stem or two of rhubarb next year, even though I know you’re not supposed to when you after you’ve moved it, but ssh, I won’t tell if you don’t.
