The September Garden

September is nearly over, and although the nights have got a lot chillier here and there's a bit of a nip in the air during the day, it's still quite beautiful and sunny.

 

Aside from fighting my squirrel battle I've just been enjoying the garden, wandering round with a cup of tea, drooling over the latest plant catalogues and generally taking a week off from any hard work. Over the next fortnight, I'll be adding my yearly mulch of bark. I find this helps so much at keeping the weeds away and it shows the plants off well too. It takes a while, but I actually enjoy doing it.

I am off to purchase some more bulbs at the weekend though, because I know by the time Spring comes the garden will be sadly lacking in tulips! Someone suggested sprinkling the bulbs with cayenne pepper before planting them, but I'm not sure if this works, or if it would harm the squirrels if they still ate them. The dilemmas of a gardener! This next purchase will be grown in pots until planting out time in Spring.

The growhouse is a little less packed as I planted out a mass of bedding plants I'd been growing on into the front garden. There are still cuttings and seedlings and I'll be trying to overwinter some tender plants in there soon. The coldframe is bursting with cuttings so there's no more room for anything in there.

The garden has recovered nicely from it's revamp and everything is growing back. What a shame it will die back again when the weather eventually starts to turn. The Hardy Geraniums are rampant although with more foliage than flowers, just a sprinkling of those here and there. The Cyclamens are looking great though.

I hope you liked the overviews and that you've been able to put your feet up a bit and enjoy your late September gardens. :-) .

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The August Garden                       The July Garden

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The August Garden

Yeah! If you made it here then it means you discovered my new web address, I am now officially bloomsnspades.blogspot.co.uk. It's nearly the end of August and I can't believe how quickly this month has flown by! I have spent more time working in the garden this month than any other this year, mainly thanks to my major overhaul. As Mr Blooms 'n' Spades says, once I get an idea in my head there's no stopping me until it's finished. My poor aching back and neck would agree!

So onto the August overviews of the garden. One part I haven't featured very much is the raised fish pond. It's a 100 gallon wooden pond that sits on my patio and we've had it for a number of years now. I'd highly recommend one to anybody who doesn't have the room for a pond in their actual garden. The maintenance is minimal and you just can't beat the sound of running water while you're sitting enjoying the sunshine with a nice cool drink.

And better than just listening to the water is watching the fish swimming around, it becomes quite mesmerising and I often find half an hour has slipped by and I've just been gawking at them in a trance. There are about 26 in here, including some little babies.

Last year, I messed up the pond a bit by painting it with a wood protector that I was told was fish friendly. Turns out it might be fish friendly, although I have my doubts now, but it's definitely no good for wood that's been pre-treated. All it did was sit on top of the wood and each time it rained I'd lose more and more of it until the surface looked awful and streaky. I kept staring at it thinking, I really must do something about that, and on Tuesday, when it was pouring with rain and fairly chilly, I decided to don my marigolds and scrub it all off. It took me about 2 hours, but it is now back to it's natural wood state and looks much better. Remind me not to paint everything in sight next time please!

A task I tend to do yearly is lifting the stepping stone path. When they've been walked on for months they sink a bit, so lifting and re-setting them helps redefine the path and make it easier to walk on. I also give them a good scrub to get rid of surface soil. A task I again completed in the rain...I must be crazy!

People often ask why I don't just lay a fixed path to make life easy for myself. The reply, I'm just too fickle and know I would change my mind about it and then be stuck, plus, I love the little stepping stones :-) .

There are only spits and spots of colour in the garden at the moment, it's mostly just green thanks to all the gaps from plants I've hoiked out. I got rid of the two giant sedums along the border that I said I was going to keep until I got replacement plants. In for a penny in for a pound as they say, no point in waiting. 

I've made a plan of how I want each area to look and have a list of plants to buy as long as two of my arms and a leg (my arms are short) and am growing lots on to try and save money. The coldframe is just as heaving as the growhouse, and my patio table is housing the overflow. 

The table is being replaced as soon as the sales start and the new set I want is reduced, as this one has succumbed to rot. I do love wood in the garden, but it's such a nuisance to maintain. Actually, this whole area is getting a makeover next year. See my neighbours lovely bit of brown creosote dripping down my 'not long painted' green fence! Grrrr! Still, better than last year when they sprayed the fences and managed to get it all over my house, patio and garden! I'm thinking of bamboo screening around the patio area fences next year.

For anyone interested in finding out the size of my garden, I finally got around to measuring it and have added the details HERE. It's teeny, but it's all mine :-) .

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The July Garden

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