As summer has turned to autumn in our neck of the woods, we’ve been getting some useful amounts of rain and have started to make progress with planting in the back garden.  The saved plants (standard bay, Camelia) and some new ones that had been in pots (apple tree, Wisteria) had to go in as soon as the ground was prepared, so required some additional watering at first.  Now that the autumn rains are allowing water to penetrate to greater depths we’re working on filling up the planting spaces.

This overview shows that there is still a long way to go, but things are taking shape.  The saved Camelia now takes centre stage and we’ve lifted the canopy to make a better shape.  This plant and a new Sorbus are designed to give a stopping off point/hiding place for birds on their way to the bird feeder.

Looking down 22 Oct

Also to provide cover and food for birds, we’ve put in a row of Pyracanthas down one fence.  the plan is to let these cover the fence, but to keep them trimmed back to a width of about 30-40 cm so that they are large enough to hide birds and their nests, but do not sprawl across the entire border.

New Pyracanthas and Sorbus

We decided that we really didn’t want a garden without roses, so one bed is a rose bed (bordered by lavender (Munstead) with Erigeron winding through it).  We have one rose in there so far (a present from Mark’s Mum and Dad) but have four more bare-rooted ones arriving later in the autumn, including one to climb up the central obelisk.

Rose bed 22 Oct

We’re trying to get different heights into the garden, with structures and trees.  So along with the obelisk we’ve put in an arch, which has our blackberry coming up from one side and a honeysuckle (Copper Beauty) on the other.

New Archway

We are planning to have some space for cut flowers, which may or may not be the bed currently hosting some of our Dahlias, but they were available and guaranteed some colour for this year.

Our Dahlias 22 October 2019

One area that is pretty much fully planted is our Acer bed – featuring two rescued Acers.  We’ve gone with dark Sedums (Hylotelephium as we should now call them) to complement the Acer foliage and then grasses for contrast.

Acer bed 22 Oct

To augment the Cyclamens, we have put in white crocuses and white narcissi and will be adding white tulips in November so that there will be about 6 months of white flower in this area during the darker months of the year.