Through the Garden gate-- October 2019

 

 The garden is still looking good even though there are not so many flowers about now. I love walking around and spotting the odd flower hiding amongst greenery, like Rudbekia, Cosmos, Calendula and Potentilla. Still going strong are the Sedums and hanging on in there are some tall dark blue Salvia, Schizostylis and Michaelmas daisies. But the one which seems to show no signs of giving up is the hardy Geranium--Rosanne. It has flowered all through the summer and is still full of flowers.

We had a lot of heavy rain in October and our bottom border which is always damp is really sodden, so in my tidying up I have not touched the soil.  Elsewhere I have been clearing away any very dead plants but leaving those with seed heads.  This tidying up has meant that the grasses now can take pride of place in the borders.

One grass which I am really liking is a Miscanthus sinesis zebrinus.  This grass has been moved about so much, after growing in a pot at our old house, I planted it in the raised bed here in our new garden but it got lost amongst other plants. Earlier this year I moved it to a new border next to the archway and it absolutely loves living there.

One of the first trees  we planted in our new garden, two years ago was a Rowan.  This year is the first time it flowered and produced berries.  I was surprised to see that the berries were yellow--I thought they would be red. I should have read the plant label properly! But I love these yellow berries they have been a lovely contrast against its red autumn leaves.

Also full of fruit is the crab apple, planted earlier this year, the fruit is turning red now and there are lots of them.  I wonder how long it will be before the birds get to them.

I have planted up some autumn containers with cyclamen and violas and these are providing lots of colour near to the house on the patio and outside the kitchen door.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly' Through the Garden Gate' post.

Autumn at RHS Harlow Carr

I've not blogged for ages, lack of time, energy and inspiration being the reasons. I've composed many  blogs in my head whilst out and about, only to forget about them later. This week though I decided to make a bigger effort. I was inspired.

Saturday is my birthday and I was thinking about treats of the going for a day out type. I don't know if it is because my birthday is in October that I so love autumn, the colours, falling leaves, smells of garden bonfires etc. So I decided that we would do an Autumn visit to RHS Harlow Carr, we haven't been since Spring.  There were lots of changes going on, new paths and borders being made which meant that we couldn't walk along some areas.  We didn't mind this as we could still see all the gardens and it was interesting to learn of the plans.

We always check out the kitchen garden first to see how it compares to our allotment. On this visit though I started to wonder why I bother growing vegetables.  There were broad beans and peas--mine have long since finished and I never have any success with growing a late crop of peas. The leeks were a good size, mine are thin and won't be ready to pull for months. Celeriac--I have given up trying to grow it.  The cabbages looked very healthy, much better than mine.  My husband pointed out that the vegetables are better looked after than ours because there are always staff looking after the garden.  We visit our allotment  about two or three times a week in the summer, less often at this time of year. The kitchen garden at Harlow Carr is also very open, no overhanging trees casting shade like our allotment.

We moved on to the greenhouse where there was an amazing display of pumpkins and chillies. There is a really big pumpkin bed in the kitchen garden and they always have a lovely display of them in the greenhouse in the autumn. I don't grow pumpkins on my allotment because I don't have a lot of space. Chillies, well I do try, but this year they haven't done well.

It was time to move on and stop feeling bad about my growing failures, so we had a coffee in the summer house. This is always a good place to stop for a rest.

Nearby in the Alpine House there was plenty of colour from the many fascinating plants. Outside the alpine house was an interesting poster display celebrating 'Dig for Victory'.

We had lunch at the café near the woods, sitting outside watching the birds which get fed well on crumbs from people's sandwiches and cakes. Next stop was the old bath house which had a local artists'  Christmas crafts display.

As we had come to revel in the Autumn colours we headed off into the woods, stopping first to examine some of the sculptures which were part of a sculpture trail.  I like the squirrel.

We spotted a newly developed area at the edge of the woods which was a stumpery and fernery.  I'm always interested to see a stumpery as I have started one in my own garden.

This was a good one, there were little areas with stumps and ferns and other woodland plants and it would be easy for people to get ideas for their own gardens.  I was pleased to see some of the plants which I have used in my little woodland area at home--ferns, hellebores, hardy geraniums, pulmonarias. I must be doing the right thing. I noticed also that the stumps and logs were arranged to look like they were growing out of the woodland bed.  Mine at home have just been plonked down--I can easily rectify that.

Over towards the arboretum we stopped at the bird hide, but there wasn't a bird in sight. Perhaps they were all down at the cafe. The arboretum is a lovely place and as expected there was plenty of lovely colours.  There is a little area through a gate which has been designated a silent space where you can sit and be quiet and still.

Coming out of the arboretum and woods we walked along the streamside for a while.  Here we saw some work being done to improve the streamside.

Harlow Carr suffers a lot from flooding and there are plans to improve other areas of the gardens too. We saw more of the sculpture trail along the streamside. Some of the sculptures were of plants and were very realistic. From a distance I was wondering what sort of plants they were!

It was soon time to go home and we hadn't been around the whole of the gardens. Another day, another season perhaps.