My Favourite Colour is October

As the garden and nursery slides into autumn the colours on the trees intensify (as long as they aren't blown off in this wind). The flowers and foliage in the garden take on much more muted tones as they disappear below a blanket of fallen leaves. That said, there is still plenty colour to enjoy. The bright yellow Rudbeckias are still shouting and clashing with the pink and purple Asters, separated by floaty grasses and tall Eupatorium. The Sedums are still going strong with their bright red and pink flowers. Some early flowering herbacious plants have lovely autumn coloured foliage, which makes them doubly worth growing. A lot of herbacious Geraniums and Epimediums do this, some Hosta foliage goes golden yellow and Sanguisorbas leaves go pink and orange through autumn. 

Gentiana sino-ornata, a gorgeous blue for autumn

Anemone 'Rotkappchen', 

Echinops in the morning sun

On a frosty sunny morning

Hops in the herb garden

Potentilla 'Helen Jane'

Although the amount of work needing done in the nursery and gardens lessens now, there are still tasks to be done and some of them quite big. The wild flower bankings all need strimmed and raked over the next month or so and we always start with the herb garden banking, to keep the gardens there tidy. The seed has all set, and once the top growth is raked off this allows space for the seed to get to the soil below. 

I can also now plant the bulbs I want to establish on 
the banking. These include 

Camassia lechtlini caerulea
Crocus ‘Cream Beauty’ 
Crocus tommasinianus
Frittallaria meleagris
Leucojum vernum
Narcissus ‘Hawara’
Ornithogalum nutans

Hopefully the last weed and garden tidy of the year, unless we get a mild
winter, then those troublesome weeds will keep growing and setting seeds,
especially bittercress which will grow, flower and seed in the blink of an
eye or so it feels. I also got some cutting materials from some herbs and a
few lots of for propagation. 

A very large caterpillar in the nursery, possibly
from a Fox moth

A Sunday well spent finishing the digging and planting the hedge of the pink border. Just the last of the planting to go in this week and another border finished in the nursery. I'm looking forward to seeing it all grow together with the dark green of the Thuja hedge behind. 

At home, Pelargonium triste, a lovely 
unusual species Pelargonium

At home the plants need attention too and I've moved my auricula primulas into the cold greenhouse for winter. After a tidy they will sit here under the bench, only requiring the occasional water until next spring. 

Auricula primulas tucked up for winter

We've had a couple of frosty mornings and
are now back to warmer, windy weather

Morrocan roast vegetable soup, ideal for
autumn days

Rhubarb and white chocolate slice, 
using up some of the rhubarb we picked in summer

A couple of weeks ago on our day off we went up to the west side of Dundee where David had a couple of surveys to do, afterwards we went to the Arts and Antique centre at Abentye for lunch and a wander round. On one of the sites David was surveying there were a row of five very impressive Sequoiadendron giganteum (Giant Redwoods) with their spongy soft bark and interesting cones. 

Cones from the Giant Redwoods

We bought this fab mini roller for the
 nursery from the antique centre

I bought myself more cornishware to add
to my collection

You know it's autumn and winter is coming
when Bracken gets to wear his coat!

I'm feeling very organised this year.
I've replaced the three broken panes of glass
in both glasshouses, ordered a new heater
and max min thermometer for the big
greenhouses and got all the bubble wrap,
 all at the beginning of October!

Lastly this week we didn't get out for the day as we'd hoped on our day off. We've had no internet at home for nearly three weeks now and the provider has proved to be less that useless, very frustrating to deal with (being polite) over the time we've had no internet and just an all round nightmare. Having promised their complaints dept would phone us on Tuesday morning we waited in, no phone call, we phoned them, again the usual nonsense from them we've had over the last two weeks and the upshot of the phone call was we terminated out contract with them, we've been with them for less that two months! They want a cancellation fee from us, we would have liked the broadband we were paying for! So now we have to wait another two weeks for our new provider to take over. SO I am having to spend a lot of time at the nursery doing internet based personal and nursery stuff when I really need to be getting on out side. 

Elder berries by the River Tweed

So! We decided to go to Peebles for the afternoon, as we now had less time to go further afield. We had a lovely walk with Bracken along the River Tweed, heading west, a walk I haven't done in years. The trees are beginning to colour up too, we'll do more of the walk once David's foot is better, hopefully while the tree colour is still good. We walked as far as Neidpath castle and turned back to the town, where we had lunch and a wander around the shops. 

Heron keeping watch

Bracken could not be persuaded to go in

A glimpse of Neidpath Castle

Looking up at the castle

Gorgeous colours

A tapestry of tree colour

River Tweed at Peebles

Merganser ducks

So there we are, September into October, two weeks of autumn, from howling gales to cold, blue skies days with an almost warm sun. I'm off to enjoy more autumn colour in the nursery gardens. 

Have a great weekend.

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