I will post a video tomorrow to mark the end of October, but for today’s post for the Saturday meme hosted by Jim at Garden Ruminations I am sharing a mixed bag, demonstrating the marked contrast between different parts of the garden, and starting with Salvia ‘Phyllis Fancy’. Fancy Phyllis chooses not to flower until late autumn, putting on prodigious growth towards her flowering season. Not being full hardy, once frosts become a regularity I will cut her back to a stump, lift her, and keep her in a pot in the greenhouse over winter. I wonder every year if she is worth it, especially as she needs a fair amount of space reserved for her in a border. Pretty flowers though…
I am not a chrysanthemum fan at all, but am certainly not grumbling at the striking density of colour of ‘Chatsworth’ and Ruby Mound’, but you may hear the odd grumble about their untidy habit – but perhaps it’s down to a poor pruning regime, in which case its my own fault…
Equally striking is crab apple ‘Evereste’ which should really have been included in my five October favourites last week for its pretty peachy crabs. Now with its branches coralled to allow better headroom it has proved to be a stalwart throughout the autumn months.
Although you can see leaves beginning to accumulate on the paths, most trees are still fully leaved, the expected early autumn having been delayed by rain at the tail end of August and into September. Seasonal tasks must still go ahead though, and the colour provided by the crab apple, chrysanthemums, fancy Phyllis and a number of dahlias contrasts sharply with now-empty pots on the paved area and the cutting beds largely emptied of spent annuals:
I would normally have defoliated all the roses by now too, but, following the dry summer, there has been no sign of blackspot so I may not bother this year, unless I run out of other tasks to do! Fortunately, I have been on a roll with them this week, potting up all my indoor bulbs as well as the clearing tasks above – and the fatsia lopping is complete as well, with a number of young shoots retained and, after an initial reduction to a metre or so, all the other stems taken down to the base. I am pleased with the result, as it retains much of its character despite the drastic reduction in bulk.
Today’s vase required minimal thought. Having talked about cutting down the rather large Fatsia japonica in my Cogitations post earlier this week, I duly took the opportunity to do so, and would have written about it in 
Some of them had flopped by then, but I was able to choose two still-firm stems, both with scraps of their distinctive foliage, and place them in one of my shapely Caithness Glass ‘Ebony’ vases. In keeping with the Halloween season, I think they have a kind of ghostly appearance , accentuated by the finger-like shape of the leaves, and have added a tiny glass pumpkin as a prop.
Earlier this year, the only major change I had in mind for the off-season was to cut down the pair of ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ climbing roses that sprawl skywards either side of the bus shelter and replace them with climbing roses that, erm…, don’t have a tendency to sprawl skywards. Mesdames have been in place for over 15 years, I would imagine, planted when I was still a rose-buying novice, and certainly didn’t realise they could grow to 25 feet. They are often the first roses to flower each year (nearer to the sun’s warmth perhaps?), and flower well over a long period without any attention, too tall to be deadheaded, and they may well have a pleasant fragrance but they are too far above my head to smell it.
Some thought has also been given to the very large fatsia behind the sitooterie, which the Golfer would be happy to see the back of (the fatsia, not the sitooterie! 😀) because he swears it attacks him every time he walks past it. It was one of the few plants in the garden when we came, although in a different location, so is over 30 years old, and I certainly didn’t want to see it go. It was only when Jude of 
There are just about enough days left in October for me to make a contribution to the monthly meme hosted by Cathy at Words and Herbs; sadly, my contributions have been sporadic in the last year and, sadder still, she is retiring the meme after this month. While the opportunity is still there, here are five favourites of mine for this month.
The quality and variety within the current autumnal flurry of blooms is making the choice of material for a Monday vase harder, albeit a good dilemma to have in mid-October. After having roamed the garden for last week’s content, I didn’t venture far from the bottom end today, a good decision in the face of the sudden sharp shower I was caught in, enabling me to shelter in the working greenhouse until the worst was over.
Avoiding the continued bounty of Dahlia ‘Blyton’s Softer Gleam’, I chose blooms instead from the rejuvenated dahlias ‘David Howard’, ‘Adam’s Choice’ and ‘Totally Tangerine’, augmented by Chrysanthemum ‘Chatsworth’ from one of the bold borders. Foliage was provided courtesy of trimmings from pink pussy willow, Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount Aso’, which otherwise obstructs the path through the woodland edge border. The resultant posy was popped into an amber glass hyacinth vase, which has not seen a hyacinth for many years, after repeatedly failing to successfully grow them this way. Props and title proved problematical this week until I realised the blooms reminded me of many of the wrappers in the Golfer’s tub of ‘Quality Street’ chocolates. After last week’s Liquorice Allsorts I wouldn’t want to imply that he is an inveterate sweet eater, and he assures me he restricts himself to three Quality Street chocolates a day, which may or not be the case.
You don’t need sweets or props or even blooms or a vase to join us on IAVOM – any material from your garden popped into a jam jar or other receptacle would be absolutely fine, so please consider joining us by leaving the usual links to and from this post.
The aftereffects of this year’s long dry and hot summer continues to throw up unusual anomalies. After a rainy spell at the end of August and a largely cooler September, October has been especially mild, with temperatures of 20 and 21°C this last week, seemingly delaying the onset of autumn. Many of the roses are throwing up a fresh crop of buds, and I looked up this afternoon to see a flush of pretty pink blooms sprinkled across the shed roof, courtesy of Cécile Brunner (above). It may not be unusual for roses to display random blooms right up to Christmas, but not in this quantity.
For once, I should be grateful to the Golfer for not disposing of his sweet wrappers promptly because, having deliberately picked a motley collection of blooms for today’s vase, some liquorice allsorts would have made great prop. Sadly, someone had made short work of the liquorice allsorts, but at least the wrapper was still about and, with a jam jar of water in it, made an ideal vase and prop combined.
