The penultimate visit to my garden journal for 2017 is here – hope you enjoy it. I began by referring back to a development we started in the garden back in September which we finished off in November. We are very pleased with how it has turned out and look forward to seeing the new plants flourish.
“October continued with damaging winds and days with brown skies and orange sun as we received the effects f Hurricane Ophelia, downgraded to Storm Ophelia as it hit our shores. The last few weeks of October and the early days of November, saw us busy continuing develop our “Oil Tank Garden”.
“We screened the ugly tank with panels of beautiful diamond latticed panels and soon got on with the planting. Always the exciting bit!”
Over the page I continue to describe our development of this border and wrote “Behind the tank we have planted two trees, the Heptacodium mentioned in September and a stunning Sorbus called Joseph Rock with yellow berries in stark contrast to its deepest red autumn foliage.
“Hundreds of miniature daffodils were planted with crocus, Anemone blanda and other small bulbs.”
“A new solitary bee home was sited in the new garden. We gave it a miniature green roof!”
“We soon had a selection of climbers planted to clothe the trellis panels, Roses, Clematis, Honeysuckle and a Coronilla”.
“Behind the tank we planted for wildlife and hedgehogs in particular. We placed a nestbox for hedgehogs among dense planting of ferns and Euphorbias. We added stone piles, leaf piles and log piles.”
Turning over another page I featured some words by Dan Pearson and looked at some autumn flowering plants.
“Taking a look at Dan Pearson’s writings about Autumn in his “Natural Selections” book he wrote,
I want to invite the seasons into the garden, vividly and in layers. I use asters, autumn crocus and gentians at ground level, and shrubs that perform for this season to take the eye up and away, to straighten the back. I weave berrying trees and shrubs into the garden as much for their jewel-like fruit as for the birds which flock down to gorge when the fruit is ready for feasting upon.”
We aim to do exactly the same in our Avocet patch. Below are a few of our Asters which feature in our “Shrub Border”, a border that brings Autumn in.”
“Another herbaceous perennial that features strongly in our November garden are the Salvias. We leave a few to over-winter in the garden but most will be brought into the cool greenhouse.”
Turning over again I take a look at succulents, plants rarely mentioned in the context of the autumn garden.
“When considering Autumn colour, succulents are rarely mentioned, but just check out the photos below of some of our succulents taken in November“
Below are my paintings/drawings of two multi-coloured succulent stems which I created with water soluble pencil crayons.
“Taking succulent cuttings.”
“Final pots of succulents waiting to go into their winter home.”
The final page of my November entries in the Garden Journal celebrates my “Plant of the Month”, which is one of only two Irises native to the UK, Iris foetidissima.
The next visit to look at my Garden Journal in 2017 will be the last one for the year, December.