It is time to delve into my garden journal where we will be considering the month of October. The month began with a week of warm weather, a little Indian Summer after all. So plenty of fine gardening days to take advantage of.
The month began with higher than average temperatures, climbing at times to 23 centigrade. After a fortnight or so it is predicted to be dropping back to the mid-teens. So we decided to take full advantage of the warm sunny days by getting out on our patch as often as possible.
The first two pages look at firstly the early signs of autumn and opposite cut flowers from our garden. On the first page I wrote, “October is the month when signs of autumn begin to appear especially leaves becoming more colourful, changing from greens to shades of yellow, orange and red. Our fruit trees have fruit mostly ready for picking.”
I then shared seven photographs illustrating the autumnal changes in our garden.
On the page opposite are photographs of cut flowers from our garden in October. I included six photographs and wrote,“Throughout the year we try to have lots of vases around the house full of cut flowers from our garden. Simple glass vases are by far the best.”
Turn the page over and we can see eryngiums featured, “We love Eryngium with their thistle-like character, fascinating cut leaves and the metallic sheen on stems and flowers in shades of blue or purple. They keep their flower shapes as autumn dries them up and they turn brown or biscuit shades. Ours all seem to be at different stages of decline, beautiful decline.”
The double page spread below featured some of our Eryngium dead heads in biscuit and metallic shades. Opposite is a painting I created of a Begonia flower from the greenhouse collection.
I noted that, “In the greenhouse our begonias and pelargonium continue to flower. The Begonias range in colour from creamy white to pure white and from the palest yellow through to deep yellows, oranges and reds.”
Turning over the page to the next double page I featured succulents on the left and rose hips on the right. Concerning the succulents I wrote, “It is during October that we have to take into the greenhouse our delicate succulents and Salvias. Night time temperatures begin to drop. Below are photographs of some of the succulents enjoying staying outside in the second half of the month. Once frosts join lower temperatures we will need to get them under cover.
Opposite I referred to our roses by noting that, “Our roses are giving us colour from the last few blooms and also the hips on several of our plants.”
Below is my sketch of a selection of hips from our garden, created in Derwent Intense Ink Pencils plus Fineliner fibre pens.
Next I looked at a major task we tackled in our front garden. I wrote, “The big task for this month was the re-making of the borders beneath our bedroom window. The border had been virtually taken over by various Crocosmias.”
I wrote, “We planted lots of narcissus and tulips, with smaller spring bulbs such as muscari, chionodoxa and puschkinia.
The tulips we chose were mostly yellow, orange and red.”
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