I meandered round the garden on Monday, but then didn’t have chance to write a post, so we have Wednesday’s Wander instead!

It’s amazing the difference a week makes in the garden at this time of year, last week the hostas were showing a bit of autumn colour, whilst they were obviously coming to the end they were still a reasonable feature in the garden, even had a flower or two…

A week later with the odd bit of rain and wind and they had definitely ‘gone over’!

I had a good session round the pond tidying everything up. I find with hostas that when they are ready they just come away from the plant without particularly being pulled, I think they go to mush at the bottom! The irises had flopped too so they’ve been chopped, I’ve pulled lots of crocosmia Lucifer up as well, I was hoping to pull a few clumps up as it is starting to invade a bit, but I think it was just the stalks that came up.

I pulled a pile of weed out of the pond, I’ve left it in a heap next to the pond so any wildlife can crawl back in again. Unfortunately the robin and the blackbird thought I’d left them a take-away! 

Last year we had a blackbird in the garden with a white spot on his wing, apparently this does happen occasionally. We called him Spot (original I know!) this year we haven’t seen Spot but we’ve seen one with lots of white markings who we presume is son of  Spot, so this one is called Splodge! Splodge liked the pile by the pond!

We still have a smattering of roses braving the weather, I think this one is the Alnwick Rose.

Down by the patio the erysimums and the nerines are still flowering well, I’m particularly impressed with the nerines as they’ve been in flower well over two weeks, with wind, rain and frost and they still look great! I’m thinking of buying some more bulbs for next year. The penstemon next to them has been flowering for weeks too.

The seed heads on the shrubby clematis add a bit of interest as we walk up the path…

…and I’ve never noticed the Osmanthus next to it flowering before, I think that is where I keep getting a whiff of scent from. I think I’ve got three osmanthus in the garden now, each slightly different variegation, I like them as an evergreen, but they’re also really useful in Christmas decorations as they look like holly but the leaves are more clustered at the end of the stalks, so they are easier to use in arrangements! 

The upstairs view of the garden is still looking pretty good, it still looks fairly full. Mind you, this was taken before I pulled out the big spikey clump of crocosmia!

I realised on Monday whilst I was working in the garden that we have just reached the time of year when the garden no longer gets sun, it just skimmed the tops of the plants down by the patio for about an hour. This is the disadvantage of gardening on a slope with trees at the top, it may look pretty but the sun just doesn’t get high enough in the sky during the winter. The house will get sun for a couple more weeks at least but that’s it for the garden for at least three months. Time to get hat and gloves ready for gardening and hand-knitted socks from my mum in my wellies 🙂