It was surprisingly pleasant in the garden today, I say surprising as the weather forecast wasn’t too promising for most of the week – mind you here in the UK the weather forecast is taken with a pinch of salt! I was well wrapped up but it was quite warm in the sunshine.

I managed to get out for a couple of hours tidying up, there’s lots to do in the garden at the moment, it can be quite overwhelming at times, thinking I’ll never get on top of it, but little by little gets the job done – eventually!

I decided to concentrate on the Amber & Amethyst garden, mainly because it’s an easy area to make an impression!! I weeded, cut back or dug up dead bits, picked up leaves. It does look better…

…as you can see though, I’m always torn between leaving seed heads for the birds and cutting plants back. My rule of thumb is that if it’s still pretty green, I leave the seed heads on!

Just at the other end of this bed, in between the arbour and the obelisk is quite a busy little corner, it never quite makes the limelight, but there’s always something going on. At the moment the red astrantia is still flowering, together with a smattering of perennial wallflowers. Once they fade the skimmia will take centre stage.

The autumn bed which I planted up last year is starting to colour nicely, there’s an acer, a blueberry and a euonymus alata together with a rudbekia still flowering happily along.

Over on the otherside of the top garden, in the rose bed, there’s a sedum which desperately needs dividing, it looks quite something with it’s big splayed circle of flower heads, but they should be more upright and it’s a sure sign it’s overcrowded – another job for the autumn.

Just next to it is a pheasantberry, or leycesteria, the purple bracts are beautiful at the moment, I tend to cut this back fairly hard each spring as it can be quite a thug. I’m currently just enjoying it filling a space with a splash of colour…

Last week I did some clearing by the patio. The geraniums have gone a bit rampant this year, especially Anne Folkard with it’s big magenta flowers. I cut a lot of them back revealing Goosey Lucy for the first time in months – I put there there in the spring as the local cats started sitting there ready to pounce on an unsuspecting bird at the feeders…

… it seemed to work well, although Lucy the dog is a much better deterrent!

This is Lucy very pleased to be back home after our few days in Northumberland, she reckoned her legs were about three inches shorter having walked about 16 miles in three days!