Tag: autumn

September Lottie Working Party

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 23, 2012
4 Comments on September Lottie Working Party

On a warm, bright Saturday morning we met at the allotments for a working party. We had lots of tasks and achieved most of them simply because everyone worked tirelessly. These working parties are so important as they not only keep the site looking good but they are good social events. Every tea or coffee break becomes an excuse for lots of talk and laughter.

Some of the committee members and their partners gave time during the week before to get some of the jobs ticked off our September task list. Jude and I re-vitalised the willow features, pruning, trimming, weaving and re-making the doorway and windows of the Willow dome and weaving in recent long growths on the Willow Tunnel.

The day of the working party started off with a surprise fog which rapidly cleared as the sun warmed and chased it off. The plants of the meadows had been decorated by spiders who had created webs to which Mother Nature had added jewels of dew. As we began work, Jude strimmed the Turf Spiral while the air was still cool and remants of fog hung over the plots.

The Winter Garden was given a big tidy up. We weeded, forked it over and mulched but the biggest job of all was pruning and cutting down the shrubs.

All the Buddleia Beds were also tidied in the same way, as was the Summer Garden.

The Withy Bed was weeded and its woodchip mulch was renewed.

The hardest job of all though was sorting out the communal compost area and taking the compost to where it was needed around the site. We have to empty all of this area in readiness for when the development of the extension to our site starts in October.

Geoff offered to sort out a tap standpipe which was becoming messy and spoilt the look of the area where it was housed. So with saw, screwdrivers, drills and recycled wood great improvements were made.

And in addition to all this the site was generally tidied. The next working party will be in October when our main task will be giving the meadows their annual haircuts.

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

allotments autumn community gardening gardening grow your own meadows

November Working Party

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 23, 2011

The final working party of the year at the lottie site at the weekend. The hardy members worked hard under dull November skies stopping frequently for coffee and laughter. We cleared our list of jobs to be done so went home exhausted, aching but satisfied.

The first job was to weed the Summer Garden, collect up the fallen leaves, give the roses a good dose of good old-fashioned cow muck and finish off by mulching the surface with woodchip to protect the bed from the winter cold and rain. One of the Charles Darwin rose bushes was still in flower so gave a glimpse of yellow and a burst of scent as we worked.

We then treated the three Buddleja Beds and the sensory garden to a weed and mulch. So now all the beds on the site have been weeded and have a protective duvet of woodchip on them.

We then split up with Geoff giving the small meadow a haircut and weed. We were amazed by how many seedling of wildflowers decorated its surface. this job would normally be done much earlier in the year but this meadow has only just finished flowering. The rest of us planted bulbs in one of our orchards including Camassia and crocus, and took hardwood cuttings of coloured stemmed dogwoods and willows.

Tags allotments, autumn, community gardening, meadows

autumn garden photography gardening ornamental grasses

Autumn Yellows

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 21, 2011

Whilst gardening today we were both amazed by how dominant the colour yellow seemed under a dark November sky – the yellow of foliage, late blooms and drying stalks. I’ll leave the photos to show what I mean.

DSC_0035-1 — Roof Garden - lichen on Japanese stone lantern.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, garden photography, gardening, ornamental trees

arboreta autumn ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture shrubs trees

Bodenham Arboretum – Autumn Magic

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 5, 2011

We spent an overcast, sunless day wandering around Bodenham Arboretum this week. We have passed its brown sign hundreds of times over the years on our way down to my home county of Gloucestershire and we always declare “We must go there sometime!”. Well, we finally did! Why did we wait so long?

A cup of coffee and a slice of cake enjoyed whilst overlooking the lake was a great starting point, and gave us time to study the map and sort out a route. As we purchased our tickets we were advised that first time visitors should begin with a walk around the Poplar Dingle. So we took the advice and followed the gravel pathway into the dingle, where our eyes were soon treated to the sight of two small Acer palmatum growing and glowing on the banks of a small pool.

Nearby we were struck by a clump of dogwoods which to begin with looked like the usual ones we grow for their red-coloured stems in late winter and early spring, but there was something about these that deserved a closer look. the leaves were painted in pinks and creams of every hue!

Lots of the more interesting trees and shrubs at Bodenham are clearly labelled and this cornus was one of them – Cornus sericea “Hedgerow Gold”.

As we left the Poplar Dingle we moved into an area rich with the reds of acers, but as we entered it we were struck by this row of coloured stemmed willows, glowing in the gloomy light.

After relishing these richly-coloured acers we followed the Five Pool Walk, a trail through a wooded valley studded with small pools, leading to Bodenham Wood. Here the smell of woodsmoke followed us, seeping through the valley sides from the dying fires of woodsmen at work in the valley bottom below us.

As we turned a corner this butter-yellow larch glowed against the deep green of its fellow conifers, but Larix decidua is the exception to the rule. Its needles turn yellow and fall.

Bodenham is full of surprises and as we found the track to take us back to the cafe we met this beautiful armillary sundial. Behind it the clump of trees contained some of the richest colours of our visit, and unexpectedly the colour came from a group of unusual oaks.

We came expecting to be wowed by the rich autumnal foliage colours – the colours of fire – and we were not disappointed, but perhaps the highlight of our visit was the spindle which gave up its shocking pink flowers. Soon these will open to reveal vivid orange seeds. What a rediculous combination, one that few gardeners would dare to put together.

We may have taken a long time to visit Bodenham Arboretum but we shall not wait so long return.

Tags acers., arboretum, autumn, Bodenham, dogwoods, shrubs, trees

allotments autumn community gardening gardening ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs

Autumnal Splendour of our Winter Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 1, 2011

At our lottie site, Bowbrook Allotment Community (www.bowbrookallotments.co.uk) we have created gardens of the four seasons. The Winter Garden has surprised us with its exciting colours and textures during the autumn. Today we weeded this bed and mulched it with woodchip which as well as giving a tidy finish, should protect the surface from heavy rain, stop goodness leaching from the soil and keep down any late germinating weeds. The sun was out most of the time while we worked and shone through the grasses and dogwoods. Although I designed this as the Winter Bed it is showing itself off well in the autumn.

The woodchip was a long way off across the site so John, our lottie chairman, devised a double decker wheelbarrow carrying system. Good job there was no health and safety officer watching!

The miscanthus look amazing for most of the year and now in November their foliage is colouring up and the seed heads are aglow. They sway in the gentlest of breezes.

The dogwoods have been planted for their coloured stems which will be lit by the low rays of the winter sun, stems of red, green, yellow and black. In the autumn we enjoy the reds and golds of their foliage just before they fall. The white berries are a real bonus – little white dolls’ eyeballs.

As we worked we were entertained by small flocks of goldfinches, linnets and greenfinches which passed overhead with their high pitched calls breaking the silence. In stark contrast and much less enjoyable were the cronking of a pair of raven and the calls of a huge flock of gulls screeching away as they wheeled around like wild white kites against a blue sky trying to escape their strings.

Tags autumn, cornus, dogwoods, gardening, grasses

autumn gardening hardy perennials

Euphoria over euphorbias

More autumn surprises! The early afternoon sun shines the spotlight on an unexpected autumn performer on our gravel garden, which we call our “Beth Chatto Garden”. We were stimulated by a visit to her magnificent Essex garden and in particular by her dry garden which she created where her car park once reigned. The plants picked out by the sun today for our delight were the euphorbias. From pink to red and from yellow to orange the colours of their leaves and stems were almost startling.

Tags autumn, Beth Chatto, euphorbias

autumn gardening

Autumn bonuses

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 30, 2011

We changed the clocks last night by that hour that marks the end of British summer time, but it didn’t mean we were really into typical weather and light for late autumn. We woke to drizzle but by lunchtime the sun was up and giving some warmth and the sky was blue. So a bonus session in the garden beckoned. And what a bonus day – gardening without jackets at the end of October – can’t be bad! And coffee out in the garden accompanied by pears and grapes freshly plucked from the cordon and vine – it gets better!

But the signs of autumn carried on all around us, the gentle watery song of the robin, the calls of redwing and fieldfare overhead. There are bonus flowers to appreciate too. Leading the way is the double orange flowered poppy, Papaver rupifragum. It simply shines. In bud it reveals a little of its silky amber secrets hidden within the tight hairy buds.

When it opens it is an orange sun. It outshines whatever sits alongside it. As a self-seeder it appears in different places each year – where it chooses not where we choose. It is better than us at knowing good neighbours.

Now to move from the riduculous to the sublime, the ridiculously bright and downright gaudy papaver to the gentlest of our garden perennials, the gaura. We love it in the summer for its gentle airy white flowers variously tinted with shades of pink, its delicate swaying in the gentlist breeze but we never think of it as a star of the autumn. But just look at these photos, the flower and the seed head bathing in and absorbing the lowering rays of the sun. This year we have seen it in a new light, the light of autumn.

Tags autumn, gaura, poppies

gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs trees

Westonbirt extras

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 27, 2011

A visit to Westonbirt Arboretum in mid-October should mean autumn richness of red, orange and yellow. But when we went this year we were too early. The spindles, birches and chestnuts disappointed. Some acers were showing colour and would have made the visit worthwhile anyway but the real treats of the day were totally unexpected – a berberis and a sorbus.

We spotted the lovely arching stems laden with red berries a long way from the main path. The sky was grey the day wet and dark but this berberis shone through it all. We made our way across wet grass to get a closer look and we met two other visitors doing the same. It was causing identification problems for everyone! The name Berberis julianae sprang to mind but I was unsure. Another visitor came over and asked if we knew what it was. She believed it to be Berberis julianae also. A Westonbirt gardener suggested Berberis concinna. But being unsure I checked in the RHS A-Z Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants as soon as we got home – we were all wrong. It was neither julianae or concinna. The mystery continued but an article in “The English Garden” showed a photo of a berberis with similar but less dense groups of pendulous berries – Berberis chitria – but I was still not convinced. As everyone was so taken aback by the large number of berries in each bunch perhaps it was just an exceptionally prolific year for it.

The RHS published an article on berberis in the November edition of their magazine “The Garden” and it presented another possibility – Berberis “Georgei”. It looks the best match so far!

The berries of this sorbus were marble-sized and deep mahogany-red in colour overlaid with white. They felt as hard as conkers. This plant gave its identity up easily – it had a label telling us it was Sorbus megalocarpa from China.

The expected autumn views of Westonbirt must not be forgotten though as some acers were dressed in their fire coloured clothes.

Tags arboreta, arboretum, autumn, berberis, gardening, ornamental trees, trees

allotments fruit and veg gardening grow your own

Autumn Planting on the Lottie

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 17, 2011

The undergardener and I spent a busy day at the lottie yesterday making the most of a warm bright day and catching up on autumn plantings. We weren’t the only ones as there were lots of plotters beavering away on this bonus “summer’s” day. It was a day of two characters with the brightness and warmth of the sun giving the pretence of summer but the calls of the jays passing overhead on the way to our great old oak in search of acorns hinted at autumn. The warmth and gentleness of the day encouraged lottie holders to wander around the green spaces and sit with their coffee on the benches. Talk with other gardeners was all of the lack of rain and the dry state of the soil. We have had no appreciable rain since mid-July. Turning the soil over sends up dust.

We prepared the ground by digging over the soil and adding a good 2 inch deep layer of compost. The ground was desperate for some organic matter to hold the moisture that the rains of autumn will hopefully bring.

We sowed broad beans, Aquadulca Claudia of course, planted onion sets, Troy and Radar, French shallots Giselle and three types of garlic, Lautrec Wight, Solent Wight and elephant Garlic.

Last year we planted just two cloves of elephant garlic to provide enough for planting out a row this year. They proved to be a real success giving us enough for a row and a few to cook. We look forward to discovering their taste – if it is a good as their gentle scents then they will be worth the effort of growing. They are strange crops though as they are not garlic at all but more closely related to leeks. As the photo below shows the cloves are a lovely golden colour when harvested and they most definitely look like garlic!