Autumn seems to have arrived all of a sudden this year, not that we had much of a summer, but within the last week the leaves are changing, falling, walks are getting crunchier and there is a definite nip in the air.

I rather like our garden in autumn, there is still a surprising amount of colour and everything has that sort of laid back, overblown decaying look! Yesterday was a typical day of sunshine and showers, I managed to have a quick wander round during a sunny spell.

The rudbekia is still flowering it’s socks off in it’s temporary home down by the conservatory, I could really do with moving it back up to the AA garden but I haven’t got the heart to move it when it’s in flower.

A purple clematis has suddenly decided to make an appearance, this one has been in for quite a few years, it’s main support was a wooden obelisk but that went rotten a couple of years ago and I haven’t got round to building another one yet so it’s just been doing it’s own thing! Only this year it didn’t, until a couple of weeks ago when it decided to flower!

There’s still a smattering of roses around, I’ve a really pretty peach one in the AA garden growing up the obelisk, I really need to start tying the shoots around the frame so it grows round it rather than through it.

I’ve a few sedums around the garden and they do give a lovely injection of colour at this time, this one has flopped this year which is a sure sign it needs dividing, so that’s another job for the  autumn!

Another BIG job for the next couple of weeks is the back fence behind the pond. We’re having a new, more solid fence put up (to hopefully help with  weed control!) so I need to clear the area so he can access it both for measuring and assessing the job as well as doing the actual work. So…I need to prune the roses hard, they’re rosa rugosa so pretty tough so they’ll survive! I need to cut down all the sycamore and general vegetation on the otherside of the fence too, I’ve roped in my OH to help with this one, I’ll prune and he can bag up and take everything up to the tip.

We’ve just had a screen put up in front of the garage too, we used to have trellis but again it had finally gone rotten, my friends husband does this sort of thing as a retirement job, he suggested a screen rather than trellis. I love it, when you sit in the arbour you see the screen and not the garage, I’ll get some more climbers to grow through it.

So the garden still looks pretty green at the moment, another month and we will be back to the bare bones of the garden…and lots of tidying up to do!