Watercolour and house painting and a gentle slide into a quieter month

Great views from Shiplaw on the way to work. I left the house in fog and arrived at work in brilliant autumn sunshine, a chilly start but a perfect autumn day. Lots to get on with before the end of the nursery season.

Another fascinating plant from the nursery gardens is Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex ‘Plena’, commonly known as “Blood root” (you’ll see why in a moment’) and hailing originally from North America.

I have been propagating some of the plant from the garden for next years stock. It is slow to spread and bulk up but once it does it makes a good sized plant, and ours is now big enough to liberate some roots from to divide and pot as you can see in the photos. You can also see the red sap oozing out which gives its common name of Blood Root.

It has grey-green kidney shaped leaves with scalloped edges and double white flowers which appear from March to April before the foliage. After flowering the leaves emerge and are a lot larger than the flowers would suggest growing to 20cm tall and 30cm wide. Grow in sun or partial shade and on rich well drained soil.

I’ve included photos of it in flower in the nursery garden this spring.

All the colours in the nursery gardens this week and still plenty bees and butterflies. The show stoppers are definitely the Sedums, grasses and Asters, oh and the Euonymus, the autumn colours on the shrubs, and so much more. The garden doesnt stop at the end of summer, come and visit us and see how you can extend colour and interest in your garden all year round

We still have spaces on our workshop on Saturday morning - Maintaining containers all year round, just book a place on our website.

Still got plenty bulbs for sale and news on our autumn sale coming soon

The Quercus team have worked hard this week on some big autumn jobs. It the time of year we catch up on all the jobs we haven’t had time to do earlier along side trying to get tunnel 4 finished so we can get it and T3 covered before winter. On Wednesday Isabel and I cut all the hedges in the nursery gardens, two mixed native hedges, a copper beach hedge and the thuya hedge in the orchard, a great days work 👩‍🌾

On Friday Isabel and Shannon planted a new hedge which will provide a wind break for the stock beds in front of the new tunnels. This involved digging a trench, filling it with compost from our compost bins and plant the box hedging, a fantastic job done. We also got the last of the plants re-planted in the winter garden extension at the end of the railway garden, these have been in posts since this time last year when they were lifted, so good to get them back in the ground 👩‍🔧

Fiona was doing some more cuttings of shrubs to build up as much stock as possible. The shrubs are a long term propagation project as they can take a couple of years to get to sellable size so its great to get Fiona to start on these 🌱

I was running another work shop on Saturday morning and we also started our autumn sale which got off to a great start. We still have lots of trees, shrubs, perennials, water plants and pots in the sale so do come along and grab a bargain. We also have plenty bulbs still for sale but they are selling 🌷

David has been working hard in the field getting tunnel 4 ready for its cover. We are ambitiously hoping to get both T3 and T4 covered in one day when we have all the helpers. Fingers crossed for calm weather ☀️

I spent some of Sunday replanting plants that have died or that are not thriving into new spaces, not easy when we have really filled all of the garden areas! Some borders need a bit of a rework and this is the ideal time to do it, while I can see the plants in full growth but can move them too before it gets too cold. This can be because the ground conditions aren’t right (usually our very wet soil) or they have grown too well and need thinned out 🌳

The cold, sunny autumn mornings have been beautiful and we’ve enjoyed the sunny weather. With a month to go before we close for winter, we hope to see you before then 😍

A sneak peak of my latest project, once I've finished a complete page, I'll share, but I am really enjoying it and the challenge

The end of September in the garden, still lots of colour and bees, its been a touch frosty so the greenhouse is packed full of the plants needing winter protection, its a squeeze! I've loved the cool sunny autumn days this week, my absolute favourite season

At last I can show you the first page of my new painting project. I was getting frustrated at not getting enough painting done, not enough practice, so I bought a watercolour book and I’m doing a wee painting most evenings illustrating the month as we move through it with things that have caught my eye. So here is page one of September, though I did start half way through the month, so there are only two pages. I hope yo like the idea, I am hugely happy with it 

A day at home getting the next house wall painted. This one is between our extension and next door's. David filled in the holes and cracks with mortar and we both got the painting done. Its again made such a difference to the look of the house although no one really sees this bit, we know its done, another tick of the renovation list.

Meanwhile the furry and plush members of the household either pretended they were in the Savana or wolves guarding the homestead!!! With only one day off this week we need to make the best of the dry weather to get the painting finished. SPending Tuesday in the nursery trying to get on with tunnel four and get it fnished.

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