My garden in September

I mentioned the tiny olives on the new olive tree last month, and this month they’ve grown to actual olive size, though I’m sure there’s not enough to do anything useful with so MOH’s hopes of olive oil production are entirely non-starters, even if he pools resources and crops with everyone else in the village!

But the new olive tree has shot up - and out - in the warmer months, and while it could do with a haircut and reshape, I know I need to leave it over the winter now. It’s really established itself on the corner of our patio and has been a good addition.

Our crab apple tree has a lot of leaves but fewer apples this year, which I’m sure is good for the tree. Every now and then I stick my head into the tree to see how they’re doing, and this was them with the sunlight streaming through early in the month. There’s a few more on the ground beneath the tree now, and I’m sure the squirrel which has just started to visit our garden isn’t helping that. I’m doing my best to scare the squirrel off as I’m really not keen on encouraging them - I can’t believe we haven’t seen a squirrel for three years though, but it was good while it lasted.

The cosmos continue to do well and are in various stages of flowering still, even at the end of the month. I still need to capture some seed so that I can grow them where I’d like, but I suspect that this area where the two pots have been will always be a cosmos hotspot.

It’s good to see the garden a bit healthier this month following a good four inches of rain. But it’s amazing to see how plants react differently; earlier in the summer I planted out two halves of a geranium, one has adapted and enjoyed its spot at least twice as much as the other. Both are in similar spots in the border, but the one below has over doubled in size - I’m thinking that the other may need a bit of help, or maybe a new spot but for the time being I’m leaving it where it is.

The Rowan tree brings some autumnal colour to the garden, and I’ve given the pyracantha in the outer border a seriously good trim, but even so that’s still laden with berries. The hebe that had issues earlier in the year continues to have issues and I’ve needed to cut some more dead branches from it. In London earlier this week I walked past some equally and probably more dead hebes near Marble Arch so I guess they’re really not fans of the weather we’ve had.

But in better news the struggling alstroemeria has perked up enough to provide more flowers, which I’m very grateful for. And the daisies which looked done in last month are now also green again - they’d still benefit from being out of the pot, but hopefully that may happen soon(ish). Later in October I’ve invited a garden designer over to see if my ideas for my garden are do-able, and to see if she can help with my problem areas, or rather the things I want in my garden but am struggling to make work - more on this at a later date, hopefully.

The fuchsias are continuing to dance into autumn, and they bring me much joy - even the one that makes my car beep as I reverse out, it needs a trim to get it away from the car’s sensors, but not when they’re as pretty as this. Or not just yet anyway.

Unsurprisingly the succulents have done well this summer, even though I lost the partner to the ever expanding one below over winter. It’s now bigger than the two of them were put together, and the usurpers I’ve added into the top half of the pot have also taken.

I’m especially pleased that the succulent rehoming I did when I faced my usual lack of pots crisis has also been successful - and I’m a big fan of the several varieties mixed together so I may even do this purposefully in future.

Last month I thought I’d picked the last of my red tomatoes, but I was wrong. And when I picked these I thought they’d be the last, but there are still a few stragglers on my plants and with the sunny end to the month I’m hopeful that they too will ripen a little more.

I think that if there’s one plant - other than our grass which has bounced back to greenness when all looked lost - that sums up the summer, then it’s the acer by the back door. As the heatwaves continued to come it too was struggling and the crispy leaves are testament to that, but as the weather cooled and the rain came the newer leaves were back to their resplendent red.

I’m in two minds as to whether or not to remove the crispy leaves or not, but as this plant usually drops it’s leaves over winter I’m waiting to see how it fares naturally. Fingers crossed - though I know there is new growth, so that is very good news.

And those olives that we started with at the top of this post, well they’re ripening and turning black, and continuing to look like olives - we’re still not in harvesting territory though!

Before I end isn’t grass amazing, the photo above is after some of the rain had come and as you can see it’s already turning back to being more green than it had for most of the summer. But what’s also interesting is that I also noticed that our grass was having its own ‘historic house reveal moment’ - and while it hasn’t revealed a grand parterre or anything too fancy, it’s clear that it is showing a former building - with the lighter ‘lines’ coming out from where the brick wall has been changed. We think this was probably one of the farm sheds, or outbuildings - but isn’t it fascinating what nature exposes in droughts?

My garden in August

It’s been a tough month for the garden with more heatwaves arriving in what seemed to be more often than the buses. I jest we get buses once an hour most of the day here, but it seems that the heatwaves have been never ending doesn’t it?

There has been a steady stream of ripening tomatoes through the month which has been tasty, some have been an odd shape but that hasn’t detracted from their taste. I suspect the yields are lower than perhaps they might have been other years, but we’ve had plenty to keep us going, and I’ve appreciated the slow drip approach rather than having a glut.

We have tiny olives on the new olive tree in the big pot, and we’ve even got our new garden furniture out and sat in it - it’s comfy, but thankfully we’d put it away before the big rain later in the month.

There’s some plant woes this month despite the regular watering. The alstromeria in flower below had a wobble but recovered enough after some time in a trug of water. I lost the agastache that I bought earlier in the summer, which was a shame but was one of those things.

The daisies were doing well until they weren’t, despite watering and the rhubarb has only a single stem on it now. I’m less fussed by these though as I’m hoping these will be back in earnest next year, and I know that the daisies will benefit from getting out of that pot - actually most of our plants will.

I didn’t have much joy with my salad growing either. The second batch germinated but then we were away for a few days and they looked a bit crispy on our return, and if you look at the photo above you’ll see that something had taken a liking to one half of the seed tray. Well, at least I helped out a hungry creature or two while I was trying! I’m hopeful that next year I’ll manage to get growing more consistently again, fingers crossed.

The cosmos - in pots too - have done consistently well over the summer and are still in flower today. I’ll be collecting some of their seeds as they seem happy here, and I’d be happy to have more of them - let’s hope that doesn’t come back to bite me!

My other success of the summer is this lagerstroemia, which against the odds - it looked like a dead stick much earlier in the year - has developed into this. It’s probably as surprised as I am I’m sure.

In warm summers we move this indoor plant outside as it loves the heat. And it’s really loved this summer, in the warmer weather it develops the red edging to its leaves which is just joyful, and when I looked more closely it’s also throwing up some more stems. When the weather cools I’ll give it a quick once over - and a dust - and bring it back inside to it’s more regular spot on the windowsill for the winter.

A lot of this post is about the heat, but as the month went on the heatwaves lessened and rain in the middle of the month must have felt like a milestone - as I took this picture. Now looking back it doesn’t seem that much, but it was probably the most significant rainfall we’d had in quite a while.

This second rain picture was just ten days later, and that was quite a bit more! So much more that our outside sofa had puddles on it, but it was much needed and I don’t think I’ve heard so few people moan about the rain! Though it added a new job to my list, and that was to make sure these two saucers were emptied when the rain had stopped, I could manage that though!

My garden still has plenty of gardening left for me to do, and I’m grateful that the days are now cooler so I can get out and tackle this, though clearly that’s better on dry days - and days where we have free time. The joys of gardening, hey?

My garden in July

It’s about eight weeks since we’ve had any proper rain here, and the garden knows it. We’ve had a few spots and the threat of rain, but nothing that’s really been of any use to my plants. I’ve been looking at posts on Instagram this last few days of people sharing the rain they have, still waiting for it to arrive here. I’m sure when it does arrive properly there will be a deluge and too much for the hard baked ground to deal with effectively, I’m sure that’s the story though in many areas this summer.

But there have been high spots, and plenty of photos so let’s get on shall we?

The month started with the rowan berries the palest of oranges, and throughout the month their colour has deepened. The lavender that was doing so well last month, hasn’t lasted as well and most of the flowers have now gone and it will soon be time for their annual trim. Thankfully though the bush that looked as if it’d failed, where we removed all the outer rotten stems, has survived in its skinnier version, so maybe we’ll be lucky and it’ll spring back.

The cosmos were doing their best to flower, they’ve actually been a really good indicator of how our plants are doing as they quite visibly droop without water, then spring back after a good long drink. I know the feeling cosmos, really I do.

This was taken early in the month while the lavender was still in flower, and to have these roses flower alongside it has been the most glorious scent filled space. Our roses in pots are still doing well, the paler Claire Austin less so, but that has spent most of this summer recovering from crispy leaves sustained in the hot spell in April.

It’s not been all sun though, it’s been windy too. And this now named ‘lightweight light’ has needed to be corralled on more than one occasion to stop it blowing about the garden. It’s name is twofold - lightweight for it’s ‘easily blown’ nature but also because for the size of it, it gives out the most minuscule amount of light. MOH tells me it’s mood lighting, but I disagree it’s hardly any light at all - it’s just as well that I like its shape, or otherwise I think it would be having its marching orders.

The small pink rose has excelled this year, and seems to have loved having its branches upright - it’s amazing what a steel plant support can do, and it’s probably the first year since we’ve been here that we’ve really seen its potential.

The cosmos flowered! Actually both pots have flowered more than once, which given the conditions I’m both pleased and surprised at. I’ve been continuing to pursue growing some lettuce in a cut-and-come-again style and have found that my best tool is a small watering can close by to where they’re growing. Which means there’s more chance that they’ll get water when they need it. The second batch of seeds has germinated well, and even looks like lettuce, and then something found my seed tray and decided to help themselves, with a whole section quite clearly munched. But at least they left me some, which of course I still need to pot on and tend for.

The real star of this month though has been my pineapple lily which I bought at Gardeners’ World Live last month. I spotted the tiny ‘pineapple’ flowers and then needed to check them daily to see how they’d progressed.

And progress they did.

We’ve been out watering our pots most evenings, or every other evening if we can’t manage every night. We only water pots, and thankfully we don’t have a hosepipe ban here, but the later evening waterings has given me time for some later evening photos, and I love this one of the rose with the lavender and street light behind it.

On days when the weather is cooler, or where plants are in the shade I’ve been taking the opportunity to fill up my green bin. There’s still a lot more to trim and take back control of but the inside border is starting to look a little less unkempt, and in places even tidy.

The prolonged warmer weather meant that it was time for us to get out the garden sofa, and that meant plenty of time for some pot faffing. Or pot scaping if you must. Ever since MOH said that when the sofa was there on its own it looked like it’d been dumped, we’ve had pots surrounding it. This year I think I’ve excelled myself as I’ve added a side table for the santolini and pineapple lily which brings a bit of height too. No doubt next year I’ll do something different!

And then there are the thirsty tomatoes, which are starting to repay us with their fruits. When I planted these I wondered if the terracotta pot or the plastic pot would fare better, and in truth I’ve seen very little difference.

I’ve still much to do in the garden, but cutting the grass isn’t one of them. Not only is there no grass to cut, MOH has reclaimed this task as his own - which is absolutely the best news, as it leaves me to potter on elsewhere!