What's looking good in September 2015

Primula(Fire Dragon)

 

Our garden is definitely showing signs of preparing for Autumn but some things are hanging on. We're into the busy time of clearing and tidying. This is a full time job at this time of year.

We have four 5ft x 5ft composts heaps where we put softer growth, two wheelie bins that we fill each week and this is a typical size bonfire that gets burnt every three weeks through till January.



This is some of next door's conifer cuttings that will get put on the bonfire. A very good neighbour that is very accommodating (he's just putting up a new fence that will give me a strip of his garden 40ft long and tapering from 3ft wide at one end to nothing at the other). I burn all his large prunings as he only has a small brazier.



Some of the poppies are still going


Forgotten what this is


One of our 40+ year old roses



The grasses on the front verge are taking over from the Spring and Summer colours of irises, cowslips, poppies, crocosmia and monbretia, penstemon etc.


Potty Corner is still flowering but starting to struggle - especially because we don't have enough time to tend to it

 

The new bed (was 22 x forty year old conifers in March) has really taken well and is getting rather overgrown. It's still producing colour so we shan't get round to that for another month or so.












A couple of these have come up in that bed and we're waiting to find out what they are . Neither of us remember planting them and everything, apart from the annuals, had come from other parts of the garden or from cuttings!




The passionflower is still flowering like mad with about 200 blooms on it and hundreds still coming


Verbascum chaixii is now into its second flowering after having been cut beck in late July to early August


And some cowslips are trying to flower again!

 

Shady corner is living up to its name. There are lots of ferns and shade loving plants plus, in Spring, the camellias seem to love the area. Golden grasses (Bowles gold) brighten it up during Spring and Summer








We have distinctly different microclimates in the back garden. Nearer the house it is always much warmer than the rest. It's surrounded by the bungalow, summerhouse, hedges and trees. The South side is sheltered from the cold winds that come across the fields, by a double row of trees and shrubs. There's approx. a 10ft gap between the two, uneven, rows and this photo is taken through the upper length of it. At ground level it is lawn and a bed of Hellebores and Cyclamen.


The Cyclamen are just into their third flowering this year


Some rather weak but very welcome Campanula are starting to flower around the garden.


And the Freemontedendron is still managing to produce flower in its upper branches.


The Shoofly plants (Nicandra physaloides) are still doing well. They're a pretty and prolific flower (and the seed pods are a pleasing lantern shape) but the seeds grow very easily so can spread if you're not careful.




Japanese anemone are appearing everywhere. They seem to like the semi-shade in the double row of shelter trees and shrubs.

 

That bed looks good and it's different without its pole!