My Garden Journal 2022 – September

Back again with a look into my 2022 Garden Journal, this time for a look at September. It was a difficult month for gardening as we were both recovering from Covid-19 which proved to be a very slow process which has carried on into October too.

On the first double page spread I considered the effects of the long summer drought and shared a sketch of some lily seed-heads. I wrote, “September brought with it a rather pathetic end to this summer’s drought, short heavy showers and longer periods of light drizzle.

Slowly some plants begin to recover from the ravages of drought, while others will need cutting back to stimulate new growth. It is a waiting game!”

Turning the page to the next pair we look at succulents, both their flowers and foliage. I wrote “Succulents often surprise us with their amazing flowers, many of which appear in late summer and early autumn. At the same time many foliage colours intensify.”

The bright orange flower is on Senecio ‘Orange Flame’.

On the opposite page I look at an urgent task for the month. I wrote, “One urgent task for this month was re-building and re-planting our roof garden atop the wood-store. It was collapsing as wood structure rotted and the drought caused havoc to the planting.”

Sodden roof sagging. Removing old compost.

Old roof almost stripped off. Placing new plants.

Jude adding fresh light compost. All done and looking good!

Onto the final pair of pages for September and we take a quick look at some of our special wildlife residents. I wrote, “We now have so much wildlife busy in the borders with hedgehogs emptying their food bowls most nights. The last few years here has seen so many new forms of wasp making our garden their home, including unusual and rare colourful ichneumon wasps.”

“Below are just two photos of our many ichneumon wasps. They are mostly brightly coloured often striped or bi-coloured.”

“Many have incredible names but only a few are common enough to be given common names, of which we see ‘Gold Marked Thread Waisted Wasp’ and ‘Digger Wasps’. Most have just scientific names such as

Pimpla rufipes Callajoppa exattatoria Callajoppa arrogaster

Ammophilia sp spheadae Mellinus arvensis”

The final page for the month features malus berries, and I noted that, “In August I shared photos of Rowan berries to illustrate how colour was beginning to show and promised to return. So, here are the rowan berries which now show even more colour apart from ‘Apricot Queen’ which has had all its berries eaten by birds already.”

The next time we visit my garden journal will into autumn as we look at the month of October.