Saturday...

This week has been dark and rainy...

It always feels strange when the light changes in the mornings...I’m a very early riser and I really miss the light mornings of Summer...

However Autumn holds such amazing colour, and even with rain preventing me from being in the garden more at the moment, there’s something cosy, reflective and completely fulfilling to the senses about it....

I went out early this morning, even though it was still quite dark and the starlings were chattering like mad ahead of their Autumnal murmurations...

There was a big storm last night so the garden was soaked...

( This is my new Autumn purchase by the way, as the old one wasn’t going to withhold another season! )

I burn a lot of my garden waste and then use the ash to dig into the garden during the spring as it helps with soil drainage, and I also love the fact that I dig everything back in to where it started from....

The nasturtiums are, of course, going strong and I’m still picking loads of them, but the rain last night had weighed them down and damaged them a little...

They will basically keep going until the first frost, which then kills them all in one morning!

...so the snails have only got a few weeks left!

(I took this picture yesterday, before the rain...)

but it is the way their leaves hold the rain which was my inspiration this morning...

Tuesday...Garden Round Up

This last week has been so hot here in Brighton, that I’ve barely been out in the garden during the day. It’s South facing so everything gets scorched...even if there are thunder storms at night.

So this army of cans provides not only the garden with water but me with good weight lifting exercise!

I’m going to be away for a week from tomorrow and although there will be someone here to keep an eye on everything, I’m sure things will look different on my return...

So I wanted to do a bit of a garden round up before I leave to do a bit of a compare when I’m back...

I really hope these dahlias will survive the snails...

...and hopefully there’ll be lots more Japanese Anemones in flower too

The bronze fennel I rescued from a crack in the pavement last year is completely fantastic and hasn’t been attacked by greenfly like the other normal fennel...

...but this Cow Parsnip or Hogweed, which came from a seed head from the side of the road is amazing...

I’ve never grown this before, although when I was younger my mother and I nabbed some Giant Hogweed seed heads from the side of the road and she then grew one which was well over 6 ft high! 

It has a very strange smell which seems to constantly attract hover flies, bees and ordinary flies but a sneaky spider has cunningly made a thick web underneath the flowers in this one...

...I also found 2 strawberries this morning!

The Sedum may possibly flower while I’m away, but the flowers will last for ages...

I bought some stems from a florist last year and had them in the house all through October and November. I had kept them in water for such a long time that they'd rooted... so a complete bargain!

These are the Heuchera I re-potted a few weeks ago ( the ones I’d rescued from the tip ) which are recovering really well...

...and my favourite bud of the moment: Chocolate Cosmos

Also when I wrote the post about saving seed heads a couple of weeks ago I had also just scattered some Calendula seeds in this pot to see if they would grow and now I’ve got 3 seedlings ( they’re the ones with lighter green leaves...I don’t know what the other one is yet )

This nasturtium leaf which I’ve had in a jam jar of water for a few weeks has mysteriously rooted!

I really don’t understand how that can happen especially as it has been devastated by black fly, but I’ve potted it up, just to see what happens...

...and I’ll keep you posted of ‘looking about me' while I’m away too!

Friday...

A complete madness of nasturtiums this morning!

It’s so true that the more you pick the more they flower...

my son and I were both arranging this morning...I was very impressed by his Temple of Heaven...

...and as he sees me playing with flowers every morning I never expect or receive any compliments, but this morning he looked over and said " ooh, I like that Mum! "

I was so surprised...and consequently have left all these little arrangements amongst the Temple of Heaven today!

Saturday...

It’s been a very sunny week although today marked a wet change...

The seagulls went crazy last night, about 15 minutes before it started to rain and this morning, ( like every morning at this time of year ), the mother seagull was on the shed roof trying her luck on behalf of her babies...who are about the size of a house!

Earlier in the week Cheeks had been in his element; in the garden, in the sun ( loved how he even wrapped his tail around the pot! )

Although the garden has been besieged by purple this week, the nasturtiums are blooming so massively that I have to pick a big bunch virtually every evening...

...I think a few people worry that I am a flower wrecker just for my table compositions, but I like to try and save loads of the flowers I use.
This is another Beryl ikebana shallow trough which I placed some of the de-stemmed nasturtiums along with honeysuckle wisps from a buddleia arrangement I put together at the beginning of the week and some hydrangea leaves...

The lacecap hydrangea is a really pretty plant...I unearthed this one years ago after a massive lavetera suddenly died and then revealed the delicate struggling shrub underneath...

...the day lilies are still being amazing, although I always feel like it’s been a shame for their ‘day’ when it rains...

( and that’s a giant echium pre massive purple stem in the background )

and the hollyhocks are getting huger by the day which means propping them up with old sticks...

...and so back to the purple buddleia again...and a day lily...which I hesitantly decided to pick at 6pm this evening, rather than see it shrivel up in the dullness of a Saturday evening!