greenbenchramblings

Back with another look at my garden journal, this time looking at my entries for the autumnal month of October. It is mostly about the effects of autumn on our garden but the first two pages are a continuation of looking at finishing off the hard task of reconstructing our wildlife pond.

The set of photos below show our adventures rebuilding the pond. I wrote, “The first day of October continued bright and dry so we carried on sorting out the wildlife pond. The following four days it poured!” The photos show us putting the new liner in place, then putting the water in before the decking goes back in place! Towards the end of filling up Jude had to don her waders to put plants in place. She loves wearing her waders to work in the pond.!

On the opposite page I show the finished product of all this pond rebuilding. I wrote, “Our wildlife pond has been completely rebuilt, the bog garden replanted and new decking boards down.”

Ten photos of the finished pond appeared on that page, as follows.

We move on next to looking at plants for a few pages, beginning with plants of more subtle colouring. I wrote, “In our gardens we tend to centre our minds on bright colours to cheer us up or gentle colours to calm us. But what about the many shades of brown which can look so beautiful in October?” I then shared 11 pictures and wrote, “It is sad when you print these browns that the combination of camera and printer give many extra tints of maroon or purple.”

More unusually coloured plants appear on the next page where I feature succulents which develop richer colours in the cooling weather and [poorer light quality. I wrote, “The colour of many succulents deepen as autumn light glows.” The first couple of photos feature ‘living stones’ or lithops.

Turning over to the next page and we discover one of my fibre tip pen sketches, showing the seed head of a carex grass. I wrote, “The colours of our grasses throughout the garden continue to star, but they are changing. The foliage on some turns a lovely yellow while the seedheads sport oranges, golds, gingers and biscuit colours.”

The penultimate page of my October journal entries is again about changing colours and once again features succulents. This time I feature those that change the colour of their leaf edges. I wrote, “Many succulents begin to show richer colouring on their foliage edges, browns, pinks and reds and in one case white. in some cases the whole plant changes colour.”

The final page for October shows typical autumnal features of our garden. I wrote, “October moments – oh so special! Coloured bark, berries. ferns and grasses.”

So there we have it, my selection of what was going on in our garden in October. As I finished these entries I also finished my sketch book so November will be in a new one.

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.