Category: autumn

The Savill Garden in October

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 27, 2012
4 Comments on The Savill Garden in October

At last we have got around to visiting the Savill Garden. It was worth waiting for! The new visitor reception is an amazing building, a single storey space under a long, sinuous roof shaped like the tail of a Whale.

Looking up at the wonderful reception building.

Looking down into the garden from the reception building.

The Savill Garden is situated on the edge of Great Windsor Park and is just a small part of the Royal Landscape. We followed the recommended path around the garden so that we could see the effects of Autumn throughout.

In most areas of the garden, Savill had the typical look and feel of a stately home garden, both in plants grown, choice of design features and border arrangements, but hints of newer thinking were showing through, such as the use of grasses and new perennial plantings.

A true highlight of our visit to the Savill Gardens was the surprise at coming across this modern water feature. It looked good and it sounded good.

Although we visited the gardens at Savill in the Autumn one of the most colourful areas was the Winter Garden, already showing many interesting features. So the next post will be about the winter Garden in Autumn.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, grasses, greenhouse gardening, ornamental trees, shrubs, the Savill Gardens, trees

autumn autumn colours climbing plants colours garden design garden photography gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography poppies roses Shropshire trees

A Wander Around our Garden in November

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 23, 2012
6 Comments on A Wander Around our Garden in November

This is the penultimate garden wander for the year and what a colourful one it is. The weather has turned cold with daytime temperatures failing to reach double figures and night time temperatures only just above freezing. Some days though do please the camera, with deep blue skies in between storms.

This rich red oriental poppy never fails to impress even this late in the year.

Several of the plants that feature in the November garden seem to sport odd shaped flowers. The Strawberry Tree, Arbutus unedo has flowers that hang like pearly cream bells. Cyclamen hederifolium have curious fly away petals while Shystostylus flowers hang on gently curving stems.

Roses seem to be blooming away giving us brightness for most of the year. Many that started blooming in late May are still flowering now and they are producing buds in readiness to flower right through to the end of the year.

At the moment I pass the wonderfully colourful corner of the Shed Bed, where grasses have coloured up intermingled with the dries flower heads of Eryngium and Agastache. It has to be my favourite November patch in the garden.

Having passed my favourite corner I pass our trees as I go down to to the bottom of the garden to feed the chicks. Their bark textures and colours change every day. This birch’s chocolate coloured bark is peeling back to reveal snow white smooth bark below, like a white shirt beneath jacket collars.

It seems to be a special year for cotoneaster berries, with every variety covered thickly in readiness for arrival of the winter migrant thrushes.

There is something very special about the freshness of the flowers of the Fatsia, with their creamy, greeny whitish colours. They always look to me as if they should smell of vanilla and be edible!

There are difficult decisions to be made in the November garden. Which seed heads to cut down and which to leave for their looks and wildlife value is perhaps the most difficult. How could you possible cut this clematis down when it looks this good? We tend now to leave perennials standing unless or until they fall and become soggy. Once they do this they endanger the lives of the plants they may be smothering. To me the idea of “putting the garden to bed for winter” just doesn’t add up. A garden is for 12 months, all of them

Wrapping the greenhouse in its winter jacket of bubble-wrap is the least favourite of all of our gardening tasks. This Novenber we started on a cold day knowing that as we added the thermal layer to the greenhouse we would heat up as well. But the sun came out and we got too hot. We started off wearing fleece jackets over jumpers but by the time we had finished we had shed both these layers and were down to tee-shirts.

First we collected the rolls of wrap from their summer quarters – the woodshed, and piled them up outside

Next we attempted to begin hanging it inside the greenhouse over specially positioned strings and wires. The bubblewrap then attacked Jude, the Undergardener.

Eventually Jude managed to overcome the wrap and get on with the job in hand, lining the sides and then hanging it over strings tied across the roof. Soon the temperature increased.

I hope these plants appreciate it!

Let’s us finish our November wander with a couple of richly coloured beautifully lit views across borders, and a quick look across our borrowed landscape.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, clematis, foliage, garden photography, grasses, November, ornamental trees, poppies, roses

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Bracken and Bilberries – Part 2. The Stiperstones

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 15, 2012

As promised in the post “Bracken and Bilberries – Part 1” here now is a post about the Stiperstones, the ridge of hills that begins close behind our home and runs down towards the south of the county. It has been a long time since we climbed this rugged landscape, even though it is so close to home. My disabilities with spine and leg troubles coupled with breathing problems stop me doing such things very often but I set myself a target each year to tackle something crazy! Climbing the Stiperstones was this year’s challenge.

The walk up to the ridge is a steep but wide grass path, shorn short by the resident ponies and cattle. From the gate at the bottom it looks a long way up. It looked even longer when we realised that we had left our flask of coffee at hom!. It was a bright day but there was a cold biting wind so we wrapped up well and set off. It looked much brighter than the day when we recently tackled the walk along the Stapeley Hill ridge.

Our green trackway through bracken was suffering from erosion from recent heavy rains which seem to come each autumn now. New drainage gulleys cross our path which mark an attempt to secure the surface more effectively when feet walk heavily over sodden turf.

Areas of bracken here, just as on the Stapeley Hill trail in my previous “Bracken and Bilberries” post, have been cut down in an attempt to get the heather back. This project is called “Returning to Purple”. Bracken does tend to take over but slowly the purples of heathers are re-emerging in our hills. Apart from bracken and the occasional heathers small evergreen shrubs which produce berries are the commonest plants – Bilberries, Cowberries, Crowberries and Whinberries. Locals still collect these berries for jams, jellies and fruit pies, but in previous centuries they were an important food source and even provided a little income for the cottagers. All these little, low-growing shrubs have dark evergreen leaves and berries offering varied colours and tastes. Cowberries, also known as Lingonberries, have edible berries with a stange mixture of sweetness and sourness. As well as here in the Shropshire Hills they are native to the Arctic Tundra and Boreal Forest. Bilberries produce edible black fruits and Crowberries similarly give black berries which have good flavour but are rather dry.

We stopped half way up the slope to get our breaths back and look back over the path we had so far covered. The view over towards “The Long Mynd was lit beautifully. Our next Bracken and Bilberry wander perhaps?

On the next stage of our ascent our eyes were drawn to a solitary tree high up on our left just below the top of the ridge. There are so few trees up here once you leave the low area where we parked the car. Every tree looks extra special because of this exclusivity and its stunted growth due to altitude, poor soils and prevailing weather.

As we neared the ridge the path got rockier and outcrops more frequent. The wind got colder making our eyes sting and run, and our ears. hurt.

The path divided as we reached the spine of the ridge with the route left taking us a short way along just over the other side of the ridge, the route right taking a long path right along the ridge to a series of rock outcrops. With the time we had left to walk and the sudden drop in temperature that hit us as we met the cold air rising up from the other side of the ridge we decided to do the shorter option. We would come back another day with more time and make sure we did not forget our coffee and fruit sustenance!

The path we took went along the sharp top of the ridge occasionally dropping onto the colder side. It was freezing, so cold that little patches of snow lay on the path in places. This is a bit early in the year for snow around here! We walked into the sun and battled the strengthening biting wind, making our way towards the silhouetted rocky outcrops. It proved to be a lazy wind – too lazy to go around us so it went straight through.

We were so glad of our thermal gloves and thermal coats but we had forgotten our thermal beanie hats. Jude tried to cope with her jacket hood which proved simply too thin. I tried to cope with a baseball cap – the wind that was too lazy to walk around us was sadly not lazy when it came to blowing my hat away!

When we reached the rugged outcrop we were aiming for we knew it was worth getting cold for. A dramatic spiky rough outcrop!

From this ridge the views westward back towards Mitchells Fold and Stapeley Ridge and Wales beyond were breath-taking. Another place to stand together and think what a wonderful place we live in.

The views to the south were equally stunning.

The cold was penetrating too deeply and lack of sustenance was beginning to tell so we turned away from the sun and made our way back to the parting of the paths to begin the descent through the bracken and bilberries along the grassy track. The wind was now on our backs, so biting less and even helping us on our way a little.

As we reached the paths’ junction before turning back downhill we took a long look along the other walk we were determined to return to tackle another day. It looked inviting with the sun shining on it, calling out to us to return. We couldn’t refuse, so pledged to come back soon.

As we stood considering the trek we would make on our return to the Stiperstones, we watched Red Kite hunting the slopes below us. A rare chance to watch these big predators from above. Little else showed, just one Meadow Pipit and the commonest bird of the day Raven working their way over the hills in pairs.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, Bilberries, birds, Cowberries, Crowberries, Red Kite, Shropshire Hills, South Shropshire, Stiperstones

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A Wander Around our Allotments in November

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 10, 2012
10 Comments on A Wander Around our Allotments in November

The penultimate lottie wander post for 2012 and at last the weather is providing a few bright cold days. This is what we look forward to in this autumnal month, rather than the wet dark days we have been presented with in the first few days. The light is warm and gives a crisp edge to any photos taken as the blue haze of summer has disappeared.

We went up the lottie yesterday to deliver some spare seeds for the Seed Swap basket and to collect some greens left by fellow plot holders for our chickens. They are spoilt by our friends from the site! It was mid-afternoon and we had not intended to stop to work, but we changed our minds. We got out the communal mowers and rakes and gave the final two meadows their annual “hair cuts”. Jude, The Undergardener did most of the work as it is a bit difficult with my spine and leg pains, so I wandered off taking advantage of the special quality of the day’s light and shot off a couple of dozen pics with my Galaxy.

As we worked on the meadows the resident Field Voles scuttled off as they felt the mower’s vibrations and disappeared down their holes. We left a few clumps of wildflowers standing for everyone to enjoy before winter cuts them down. Field Scabious, Mallow and Sunflowers.

The meadows that are already trimmed look flat and brown, but the pathways mown through them look crisp and green.

The foliage in our Sensory Garden is given extra vitality in the November sunshine.

The next shot is a view of the site boundary through the seed heads of a white-flowered Actaea across the Spring Garden. In the Spring Garden a tiny Acer shows that you don’t have to be big to impress.

In the meadows the last of the grasses and sunflowers stand tall and proud.

Up in the mature Sycamore and Oak the resident bats will be shuffling around and preening in readiness to leave their roosts in the boxes and go on the feed for moths and night-flying insects. Bats are our night-time pest control patrols. In the daylight hours we are being entertained by birds of prey often being mobbed by our flocks of Jackdaws and Rooks . Peregrines, Buzzard, Red Kite, Kestrel and Sparrow Hawk.

Around the plots the gardeners are preparing their plots for the winter, beds are cleared and manure piled up or spread over the surface.

A few crops remain for winter sustenance.The red stems and purple leaves of Ruby Chard add a burst of colour. Brassicas are covered to give protection from ravenous and greedy Wood Pigeons who love to eat the sweet centres of Brussels Sprouts and the tenderest, newest leaves of cabbages.

A few remaining flowers add extra brightness to the plots.Tthat most popular of companion plants, the Calendula brightens up compost areas and odd roses still perform in the Summer Garden. We can expect these David Austin roses to continue to treat us to flowers until the new year.

The star of the site for the next few months will be the Winter Garden and it is already showing promises and hints of what delights it has in store for us in times ahead. As leaves fall from trees and shrubs the colours and textures of the stems and trunks will come into their own.

We have endured a wet summer and autumn with each month breaking previous rainfall records. Crops have been poor and we have been flooded four times. Dave, the Scarecrow looks a bit worse for wear too!

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Nuts and Berries

As allotment gardeners we enjoy late summer and early autumn as the busiest harvesting time, but lots more food is coming into readiness in our ornamental gardens and parks. Nuts, seeds and berries provide feasts for wildlife and feasts for our eyes.

Sweet Chestnut awaiting the attention of squirrels in Pittville Park in Cheltenham.

Onopordum seed heads against a blue sky in our garden.

Drooping Dieramas.

Black umbellifer seeds.

Crataegus berries and autumn foliage.

A host of Arum Lilies.

Jude “The Undergardener” mystified by an unknown chestnut.

The chestnut had spiky golf balls as nut capsules.

Mad clashing colours on Euonymous europaeus.

Crocosmia Lucifer graceful stems with its ginger coloured seeds.

Let us now have a wander around our garden and spot red berries, and photograph them before the Mistle Thrushes, Redwings and Fieldfares gorge on them.

But unlike Henry Ford we do grow our berries in more than one colour!

White Dogwood.

Two-tone Hypericum.

Musky purple grapes.

This unusual cream berried Cotoneaster always confuses garden visitors. (C. rothchildsiana)

Tags autumn, autumn colours, autumn harvests, fruit., garden photography, gardening, harvests, ornamental trees, shrubs

allotments autumn fruit and veg garden photography gardening grow your own

Fruity

We harvested our first apples last month and have been harvesting other varieties as they ripen. We still have a few varieties waiting on the treesto be collected. The first harvest was from a tree we have trained over an arch, having bought it as a one year maiden. It is a deep red-blushed beauty called “Scrumptious” which is a rather silly name but I have to admit quite apt. The basket weighed in at 8lb 7oz. – very pleasing!

The other variety that we normally harvest in September is James Grieve, which grows in the company of a clematis over another arch. This tree is a reliable heavy cropper and this year’s crop looked most promising as we waited for it to ripen. We can enjoy the taste of this apple straight from picking and they stay full of flavour for a few months, but it does not store too well.

The harvest did live up to expectations weighing in at 27 lb with a few of the individual fruit being really large as we can see in the picture below of these two sitting on Jude, the Undergardener’s hand.

All the apple, pear and plum trees in our garden were bought as one year maidens and we have trained them into cordons, over arches and as step-overs. Now after ten years it is so rewarding to see them as such productive trees. Of course apple trees are worth growing for their blossom as well, so they are doubly useful to us gardeners.

The apple below is Red Falstaff a variety we have trained as a single-stemmed upright tree. It sits to the left of our greenhouse door, where, coupled with Scrumptious on the right of the door, it gives the impression of being one of a pair of sentinels guarding the doorway. We harvested our Red Falstaff a few days ago and the fruit has developed much deeper red blushed cheeks. In total though the little tree produced only half a dozen pounds of fruit.

The green fruit below is a Bramley apple, the only pure cooker we grow. It is not the best of croppers as we made the mistake of training it as a step-over. Bramley is a tip-bearer so when we carry out the formative pruning necessary with step-overs we are effectively cutting out most of its future fruiting buds. However it does give us a small crop every year, so it has forgiven me my ignorance. We stew this cooking apple and then freeze them to use in pies in the winter and spring. As we do not grow many cooking varieties we tend to use wind falls and any damaged fruit of eaters as cookers or as ingredients in chutneys or mixed with blackberries in jams.

Ashmeads Kernel seen below however is a most successful step-over tree, with a dry textured skin and nutty flavour. This apple is one of the last to be harvested in late October but will not be at its eating best until December through to February, when its flavours will have fully developed.

We grow some heritage varieties which tend to produce fewer fruits but are usually better flavoured, such as Cornish Aromatic, Beauty of Bath, Pixie and King of Pippins.

The photo below shows the unusually shaped, boxy fruit of Cornish Aromatic with its green skin with a few freckles of slightly deeper green.

Any apples whose flavour improves with keeping ,we store in shallow trays with individual fruit wrapped in newspaper to make sure no fruits touch each other. If an apple does go bad when in store then this barrier of newspaper will stop it spreading too quickly.

The act of picking fruit evokes our senses, the touch of the skin as we twist the fruit from the tree, the scent of the fruit in the hand and the subtle variations of reds and greens to delight the eye. And then of course comes the taste, in some cases best straight from the tree in others the tastes matures with age, reaching a peak months after being plucked from the tree. There is also the sensation of the first bite, the crunch, the juice running and the balance of taste between sweet and acidic, and the hints of fruits shared with other fruits, strawberries and pineapples.

Our pear trees were a great disappointment this year. Out of our four cordons only one produced any fruit at all but just look at the size of them!

Tags allotments, apples, autumn, community gardening, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, fruit., garden photography, gardening, grown your own, harvest, organic gardening

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The Dingle – A Welsh Garden Wonder

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 3, 2012
4 Comments on The Dingle – A Welsh Garden Wonder

Close to Welshpool, just a half hour from home across the Welsh border, are our favourite nursery and garden centre, The Dingle and The Derwen, part of the same family. They sell unusual trees and shrubs and many good-value perennials all locally grown. But hidden away in the Dingle nursery, through a little wooden gate is a wonderful sloping garden. The garden is mostly a wonderful collection of unusual trees and shrubs on a gentle slope down to a lake, so a visit in the autumn is an assault on the senses.

The nursery which is now over 40 years old, grows thousands of plants on its 150 acres of Welsh countryside. We rarely come away without a gem – and they give free coffee away too!

The garden itself extends to just four acres, but those four acres feel much larger than expected with a complex network of paths which give occasional views which are wide and stunning. This is good garden design.

As the paths take us around corners they feature interesting, colourful shrubs and trees to delight the eye before enticing us to find out what is around the next corner.

Being on a slope, the garden’s many seats are most warmly welcomed by aching legs.

Some of the seating provides cover which proved useful a few times as showers burst from the dark sky just visible through gaps in the trees.

Coloured, textured foliage and bark keep the interest of the plant lover in us going strong and enticing us around each corner.

As in any good garden little cameos stop us in our tracks and catch the eye.

The lake at the lowest point of the garden, provides a restful place – restful to the eye and restful to the legs.

Strong contrasts in foliage colour show up in the brighter weather as we work our way back up the paths to the gate.

As in any garden specialising in trees and shrubs the stars of the autumn are the Acers.

Back up the top of the garden we pass through the little wooden gate and are tempted for a perusal of the colourful nursery beds.

Tags acers., autumn, autumn colours, cornus, foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, NGS, ornamental trees, Powis, shrubs, trees, Welshpool

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Leaves

Just for a change we have no words just photographs to enjoy. A few sneak in near the end though!

If only you could smell the leaves below! They are from the tree called Cercidyphilum and they smell so sweet. I think they smell of toffee apples, Jude thinks they smell of candyfloss while others think the scents reminiscent of brittle toffee, burnt sugar, in fact anything sweet and sticky!

The most underrated plants for autum leaf colour must be the grasses. They very rarely get a mention in relation to autumn colour, so let’s put it right.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, autumn leaves, colours, foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, leaves, ornamental trees, trees

autumn garden design garden photography gardening hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography roses Shropshire

A Wander around our Garden in October

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 28, 2012
6 Comments on A Wander around our Garden in October

The tenth post in this series of wanders around our garden already! Just two to go! What shall I do for a monthly garden post instead next year? Any ideas for me?

October started off with days of endless heavy rain but after a fortnight it changed to steady drizzle. A bit of sun would be welcome right now.

The first frosts have visited us forcing us to bring the Aeoniums, Echeverias and our other tender plants under cover. We shall have to keep them safe in the “bubble wrapped” greenhouse, by giving them virtually no water and removing any dry or damaged foliage and when the temperatures drops below -15 C give them additional snug coverings of fleece and bubble-wrap. Another sign of autumn is the log delivery which was tipped off the back of a truck onto our drive mid-month. We sorted them and stacked them around the front door. The wonderfully evocative woody aroma of oak and birch trees mixes with the sweet scents of the woodland floor. The scents of the season.

We visited the gardens at our favourite nursery yesterday, The Dingle at Welshpool, a superb autumn garden on a sloping hillside leading down to lakes. (Look out for my post in the next week or so) As usual we returned with a few acquisitions – a tiny orange Kniphofia, Cornus canadensis and Clerondendron bungeii.

We have planted the Kniphofia with a trio of bronze-leaved grasses and near to our darkest blue Agapanthus. As the “poker” is flowering now, its head of tubular orange flowers glows alongside the Agapanthus’ developing seed heads of blue and pewter.

Sometimes autumn hues aren’t just provided by deciduous trees changing the colours of their leaves but by foliage on perennials, grasses and shrubs. Euphorbias are a fine example, as are grasses which have the added bonus of seed heads. Look out for the pic of our Pentstemon Huskers Red which always surprises with its deep red autumn explosions.

But amongst all this red hot foliage we mustn’t lose sight of the flowers that continue to add colour to the garden. There are now fewer so each one is a precious jewel.

I shall finish off with a few pics of autumn coloured leaves, just what you expect in October! And then take a look at one border and take a walk down just one of our many grass paths.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, colour, crocosmias, foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, grasses, October, ornamental trees, pentstemon, roses, shrubs

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A Wander around our Allotments in October

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 26, 2012
5 Comments on A Wander around our Allotments in October

Flooding and its problems have dominated our allotment month. For the third time this year our allotment site has been under water. Rotten potatoes, bark paths washed away, rows of seedlings washed onto other plots and onto pathways and items stored in sheds ruined. This is sadly becoming a regular occurence. We have a meeting with the town council next week so perhaps we can come away with some positive news for the allotment members.

But let’s concentrate on the positives of our lovely site. The people and the plants. This is our friend Sherlie with a monster cabbage!

Phil had never grown apples until four years ago when he asked me to help him set up a row of cordon apples and pears and teach him the necessary skills. Now look at what he has achieved this year!

Our wander with camera in hand took us through the Autumn Garden over to our plot and then across to the Winter Garden via the Spring and Summer Gardens.

The Autumn Garden, appropriately, is now looking wonderful with late season flowers looking colourful amongst foliage the colour of fire.

Butterflies, bees and hoverflies were flocking to the asters in this garden for the first fortnight this month but as the weather turned colder they rapidly disappeared. Buddlejas flower profusely around the site during the summer attracting beneficial insects and pollinators, but this orange one flowers in the autumn.

We grow a variety of Sorbus trees here and they provide wonderful foils for late flowering perennials.

The stars here though have to be the Echinacea.

Around the trees in the Birch Grove fairies have been at work. So many plot holders have been taking photos of their handywork.

On our own plot we are still picking autumn raspberries. The three varieties of kale we are growing are looking quite colourful as is a sole sunflower – the only sun to be seen up on the lotties at the moment. The day these pics were taken was dark and overcast.

A little bit of extra colour can be found in the leaves of our blackberry bramble.

The crops that we will be harvesting during the winter and early spring are coming along nicely. Leeks, parsnips, carrots and celeriac.

The Winter Garden is an oasis of brightness with most of the colours coming from foliage.

I shall finish my October wander with some great news. Three Bowbrook Allotment Community gardeners were invited to the Mayor’s Award Ceremony earlier in the month. Dave, on the left, received his certificate and cup for the Best Front Garden in Shrewsbury and Sue and Paul collected their award for Best Half Allotment in Shrewsbury. Well done to them!