BEDDING DOWN THE TENDERS

Well some what later than usual we have finally gotten round to bedding down our tender plants for the coming winter weather.

Although last evening was sunny as you can see by this photo from the front door of the smoke bush and Birch tree, it's leading to cold nights with a touch of frost.

So Saturday we purchsed some fleece to wrap the bananas in. So now the bananas are nice and cosy wrapped in an old duvet and then surrounded by fleece and topped off with a plastic box to protect the top.

The palm has been given some fleece and a plastic sack to help it through the winter too.

Today, Sunday , it was the turn of the Dicksonian's to be giving a fleece bag to help keep their fleeces and blanckets in place for the winter.

 

 Paul also planted up the tulip bulbs into some new large plastic pots, we have two sets of tulips with four pots of each.

These have been placed one pot of each mix in each bay of the formal box garden.  In four of the pots there are five bulbs of each, Ballerina,Marlot and Sarah Raven and in the  other four pots there are five bulbs each of Flaming Spring Green,Jan Reus and Ronaldo , so fifiteen bulds to a pot. So hopefully next year we will have a wonderful display of Tulips, which we can move easily once the display is over and store until the next year.

This shows the amount of rain we have been having here lately although nothing like what our poor friends up in Yorkshire are having at the moment!

This little geranium is still flowering dispite the cold weather ! Maybe surviving as it in a trough against the shed under some light cover.

These Queen of Sweden roses are also still growing strong although we will need to cut back their stems soon ready for next year.

 and the big Agapanthus flower is still refusing to give up!

Out in the front garden the Strawberry bush is both in flower and also in fruit , you can see the fat red strawberry berries more on the left of the photo.

The Cotonaster on the right is full of berries for the birds to enjoy as the winter arrives.

A view from outside the front wall looking back at the front garden with the morning sun shinning through the smoke bush.

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NOVEMBER IS UPON US!

November is here and don't we know it ! The temperature is dropping and we are getting clear nights which means frosts!
Which means it's time to start putting everything to bed for the winter to protect those tender plants.

But It also means that some plants are putting on a last display, like our smoke bush.

It is living up to it's name and making a blaze of colour in our front garden.

The view from the front door. And to think we nearly dug this bush up a few years back when it looked like it was dying but we decided to leave it another year to see what happened ! Just as well we did.

You can just see a few Fushia's still flowering on the bush in the front of photo and a yellow rose in the centre, so still colour in the garden.

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TROUGHS

We've used our old butler sink to make a trough outside our front door.

filled with soil and grit to help give good drainage.

 almost filled

Just needing some extra grit.

We also bought a small stone trough.

We placed it along side the old butler sink and on the other side of that an old Japanese style blue glazed trough which we've owned for years but was not doing well where it was.

The old blue glazed trough.

The three troughs now stand in the curve of the front drive leading up to the front door, they will get the sun in the morning, so should do well.



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THE GARDENS AT STANDEN HOUSE

These are some photos from the gardens at Standen House an Arts and Crafts property in the care of the National trust.

 1 A vibrant corner of the front courtyard

 2 at the side of the house

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We stayed close to the house when going round the gardens due to the constant threat of heavy rain but the gardens were lovely an well worth a visit.

Loved the conservatory and the detail of that appears like a large bird table and a quality version of trellis!


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