The garden is still looking full at the moment but autumn is clearly on it’s way, I’ll have to start the big tidy-up soon. There’s not a huge amount of flowers, but there’s a few…

Down by the conservatory door I have silver leafed shrub which goes by the wonderful name of perovskia, otherwise known as Russian sage, I always think it looks like it wouldn’t like my soil but it’s been there quite a few years now, it has lovely intense blue flowers, a bit like a mixture between lavender and catnip…

Up in the autumn border the rose called Lark Ascending is doing it’s best to flower, the clematis has also produced some last minute blooms and the rudbekia is brightening up the bed with it’s deep yellow flowers.

The foliage is starting to take over from the flowers for interest in the garden. The clematis which climbs up the arbour is a lovely lime green at the moment…

…and the cotinus cogghria is a lovely wine red. I can never get a photo which really shows what a gorgeous colour this shrub is, it always seems to look a little dull, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, just think of a glass of claret!

Further along the same bed is a pheasant berry, or leycesteria. It’s quite a spreading shrub which does need taking in hand occasionally, but in the autumn it has these gorgeous purple bracts dangling down.

Even further round the lawn, in between the roses, is a wiegela and a spirea, for most of the year they play second fiddle to the roses, but as the roses fade they provide a bit of interest with variegated leaves and pink flowers.

Yesterday we finally interred my mum’s ashes in the Garden of Rest at her church, I picked some roses from the garden and found just enough to make a pretty bunch, though really they were getting past it – I did feel a bit like a bridesmaid shedding petals where ever I went! The smaller tangerine coloured rose in the middle is called Port Sunlight, it’s from a rose bush I found unplanted in her garden when she went into a care home. I added a few geums and a bit of foliage, the roses smelled lovely. My mum would have loved them, in fact she would have got her paints out straight away and painted them!