Autumn is certainly coming! As I am writing my September review, I am looking out onto a scene of autumn staring back to me. The group of flowering cherries have now dropped their multicoloured leaves to the ground, almost like a towel on the floor as you disappear into the shower, their leaves spread out like a multicoloured mat, mixing with the last flowering of the white daisies in the the green green grass. Soon the winter winds will spread this carpet far and wide over the next few weeks, with the cherry leaves soon to be mixed with the different species as they slowly change colour and add a last gap of colour before all we see is the naked branches during the winter months.

No matter what the weather brings , I love this time of year. It’s the change time within the garden year and from maintaining the garden, keeping it all looking so good for as long as we can, I now am slowly starting to change approach to one of planning for next year, from the simple thing of adding plant material that has given us months of delight,  to the compost, producing a great material to feed the garden to changing borders, adding new plants and bulbs into the garden, ordering up the new bare root plants, all exciting stuff!

One thing I try to do as we are preparing the garden for winter is to try and keep the skeletons of plants flower stems within the borders to add a bit of structure into the borders, plants like the seed heads of cardoons, agapanthus, sea hollies, alliums and so many more, really almost anything that produces a hard woody seed stems. These can be transformed by Jack Frosts work during the night, with the frost adding a layer of white icing, changing the look of them, enhancing the stems. Also the seed loving birds like Goldfinches can be attracted into your gardens to enjoy the bounty you have left behind.

For me the last month has been a busy one, lots of working going on, finishing off the hedgecutting, pruning of once flowering ramblers, weeding and started a garden renovation of my own design, which let’s be honest, it’s always great seeing your plan take shape on the ground, the new decking had to go down first and next is the step area going from the back door to the French door windows. It’s great to slowly get back into the throws of it all now, with my Achilles starting to get better, still avoiding doing a few things on it like mowing but overall it’s now slowly getting stronger.

But overall I was pretty busy in September, lots of talks given all around southern England from Dorset to East Sussex, met some wonderful gardening and Horticultural groups, with some many members who come along and support the group and listen to me mumbling on about roses and plants in general, I think they enjoying, I always get asked back at sometime so I think they do! But I certainly enjoy talking to everyone, answering the questions that may be posed the best I can, the diet could be better at times, with my now rather sad knack of knowing most of the fast food places from Bath to Brighton. Lot of visits also fitted it, with Glee, the Landscape show and a GMG trip to Lullingstone Castle and Great Comp all fitted in, done blogs on most of them (Great Comp coming soon) so won’t bore you any more on them.

This month coming up is looking quieter overall, not so many talks planned, not many visits either but a bit of work to get done on the positive side. The main thing is me starting on the RHS Master of Horticulture course, it’s a 3 year course mainly based online and is the RHS top level qualification. I am both very nervous and worried about starting it, been years since I have done any kind of formal education but I am also so looking forward to having my brain stretched and more knowledge to gain from areas I don’t know as much about, roll on this coming weekend!

Some of the jobs I shall be doing over the next month including cutting some herbaceous plants back, finish off pruning summer fruiting raspberries, hoping we get a dry day so I can finally cut my wildflower areas, put down some wildflower Turf and start my bulb planting.

Got lots planned blog wise too, don’t forget if you want me to do something on a certain topic please feel free to ask! Certainly getting a review or two in as well as covering the normal stuff like plant of the week and 6 on Saturday

Well I hope the leaves don’t fall to quickly for you all and I hope to catch up with you all next month

Until then, may your trowels be dirty from bulb planting

Thomas