September, the month that is neither summer or autumn is a true one-off special! I always like to think of it as still being in summer, whatever the met office decrees!
I began my September journal entries by writing, “September is the month that we hope will give us an Indian Summer, and this year’s has started looking good with some warm bright days. This means that late summer/early autumn colours look extra special.”
On the next page I wrote, “This month is going to be very much a month for getting jobs done, including repairing our rill that had sprung a leak. So we decided to take it totally apart and start all over again and also did the same to the adjoining raised pond.”
This page also included a photo of our corten steel sculptural “Tree of Life”.
On the page opposite I showed how we also had to repair our large wildlife pond which sprang several serious leaks over the spring and summer. Below the first group of photos I wrote, “The pond before we had to build it following the discovery of leaks. The weather was with us during the last week of September so we made rapid progress.” With the photos on the right hand side of the page I annotated them with the words, “First we had to remove pondside plants where needed and remove the log edging. Next we exposed the liner all around .“
“We then removed the water and sludge keeping several trugs full of each.”
“As I started dismantling the decking Jude cleared the beach of pebbles.”
Over the page I looked at my foliage plant for September and on the opposite page my flowering plant of September, the crocosmias. I wrote, “My foliage plant of the month is the family of begonias grown for the shape, colours and textures of its foliage. We keep our begonias in our greenhouse as few survive outside for long. They look good mixed with our many coleus.”
“Crocosmias must be one of the most cheerful and colourful families of plants we can grow in our gardens. Here at Avocet we grow over 30 different cultivars. They flower for many weeks so really do deserve to be my flowering plant of the month for September!”
On the final two pages I looked at our garden produce and our garden after the rain.
“September is the first of the busy harvesting months and this year in particular it feels really good. Apples, pears, blackberries and tomatoes all keep us busy. It is also the time to make jams and chutneys.”
“After the rain! After a wonderful ‘Indian Summer’ the rains returned with a vengeance. After each storm or shower some plants hold onto raindrops on leaves and flowers and stems.”
The next visit to my garden journal will be all about October.
greenbenchramblings 