Autumn Buzz

Spring seems to have come in early this year and summer came in so late, albeit a short one too, and now it's autumn and the signs of this season are undeniably everywhere now. Leaves of several deciduous trees and shrubs are already changing colours whilst some have already shed their leaves with nothing left now but just bare stems and branches.

This particular Aloe polyphylla has done incredibly well this year. I re-potted it last spring (whilst watching Prince Will and Kate's wedding on TV) and it was a generous sized pot for it's size back then, with a two inch gap between the rim of the pot and the tip of the spines all around. It obviously appreciated being over potted and now it is much bigger than the pot and is around 16'' in diameter. Now with having so many bamboos in the garden it is inevitable that nearly all of the succulents we display here gather leaf litter on their crown at any point, but this aloe seems to have avoided it all along. One time I said to myself 'Autumn will be here once I see a red leaf falling onto it's crown'. And that's exactly what I found this morning and taken a photo of.

Agave attenuata - a tiny plant we bought back from Madeira, now it's starting to form a trunk

So what happened between spring and summer then if the latter came in so late here? Well, a long 'spring' I suppose, and I can't even remember a single sultry evening on the supposed to be 'summer' here until for a few days in early October. And now the warm spell is over the weather definitely feels autumnal now.

Cussonia spicata - gorgeous foliage but has to be overwintered indoors

It's a tricky time of the year especially if you're in the middle of a big project like we are. We prepared the garden as you would in the spring and come summer time it was pretty much able to fend for itself, with some routine maintenance of course, whilst we concentrated on our project. Now that autumn is here we have to primarily shift our attention again to the garden as we prepare it for the coming winter months.

Cassia marilandica - the hardy Cassia that comes back from the ground every spring (shame this photo turned out blurred!)

There's so much to do but nothing daunting enough to cause stress and nothing that we're unfamiliar with any more. Autumn is the messiest of the four seasons so it's mainly loads of tidying up in the coming weeks then putting up necessary protection on certain plants for the coming winter.

Dahlia 'Twyning's After Eight' - blooming away till the first frosts

One special thing that I do enjoy this time around is that I get to spend some time inspecting individual plants as I prepare them for winter, giving them a once over and assessing what sort of extra care that they'll need next year, or simply appreciating their beauty and how they have done so well in the past months.

And another thing, certain plants look their best and flower during autumn and I look forward to seeing them in this period every year, like toad lilies which I absolutely love for both its flowers and foliage. This one in particular is my favourite, Tricyrtis lasciocarpa.

Tricyrtis lasciocarpa

So, I've got lots more random musings to come up in the next few weeks as we prepare our garden for another winter. Meanwhile I shall relish myself (and you, our blog readers) with the beautiful flowers of Kniphofia thompsonii flowering for the first time in our (new) garden.

Kniphofia thompsonii

Mark

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