PUTTING THE GARDEN TO BED

 For the winter. Up until this last week the weather has been quite mild and then we had several days of grey skies with no  sun apart from about half an hour now and then. 

It made it every dull. Paul continued pottering around, getting those plants that needed to be lifted, like the Dahlia's  sorted and washed off dried and put away for the winter.

Other plants were moved into the potting shed or greenhouse, that had it's bubble wrap reattached to the glass for more warmth.

The Bananas are now all wrapped and padded to help them survive the winter cold.  So now it's just clearing up and sweeping and waiting for next spring.

The flower garden still as some splashes of colour. The pots have been replaced with tulip bulbs and a wallflower in the centre.

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I have to say all the fuchsia's have been brilliant and been flowering for months and still going strong added a lovely look to the beds.

The Rowen is full of lovely pink berry's for the birds to eat.

Lovely and full.

The Mahonia behind it is starting to open it's yellow flowers and all the insects and bees are buzzing around getting those last bursts of nectar.

So mainly just some tidying left to do and then the long sleep until spring.

OCTOBER WE INCREASE A FLOWERBED

 

 

In October Paul increased the size of the flowerbed at the side of the studio.

In the summer moths it was very full with some plants getting squashed by others.

We decided to bring the edge out  to the edge of the path. Which added about four foot or so to the depth of the border.

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Once the grass had been removed , the edging stones were brought forward to form the edge against the pathway. The end goes over at an angle to the studio, at some stage the area in front of the studio will be paved to meet the path.

We have put a tall metal fence around it for now until it starts to fill out and to stop the dogs from going over to check it out.

The new area needed to be raised slightly to meet the old area , so lots of lovely compost from our compost bins was added , then all the geraniums etc that had grown along the original edge was dug up split up and moved forward.

The column has been moved forward to give space to plants behind. The new area as been filled with some plants from pots and other that were cuttings along with some moved from other areas of the garden. 

We also took away some tall shrubs that formed part of the barrier between the trellis and the flower garden, to let some light in behind the Magnolia Black Tulip , which needed some shelter when first planted but is now big and growing forward to find the light. Now hopefully it will grow more towards the trellis and straight up.

 The statue has been put safely away for the winter due to how many strong storms with have had recently and since we have moved it forward and cut some shrubs down, we decided it was best it stayed safe this year.

Already the plants are getting established and hopefully next year this area will be full of leaf and colour.