Love of orange, my rarest shrub, euonymus cornutus quinque cornutus

   
   

CLIVE Nichols at photographic workshop

  

Clive Nichols at the photographic workshop at Pettifers

   
   

Changing the planting in the Autumn border, September 2016

Polly has gone on holiday for two weeks so I had to enlist James’s help to dig out a Sanguisorba as I know it is a job that is beyond me.     Thinking about Sanguisorbas I feel that sometimes they are a plant that have a lot of foliage compared to their flowers.   Also if you move them they don’t always take, particularly if you are moving a large plant.     Then about two years later this becomes obvious.        Near the gate that goes into the paddock I have planted about five Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii which has an AGM.      Where we have got Panicum Heavy Metal  I have drifted back three Helianthus ‘ Gullicks variety’ which also has an AGM.      I am about to plant five Vernonia fasciculata which is a brilliant purple.      They have a rather good foliage and red stems, and are very tall.     The Helianthus are planted near the Eupatorium purpureum subsp. maculatum ‘Riesenschirm’ which having flowered earlier is now a rather dusty colour, so that part of the border needs brightening up.       On the right hand side of the border I have planted a Miscanthus Cosmopolitan which will get huge, and is green and white, and everything looks good against it.

The bottom part of the garden is a blaze of colour, and the picture of the two berries I have put on this blog, is Sorbus Vilmorinii, and Crateagus Laciniata.      The top end of the garden is creams Browns and purples, but still interesting.      The cortaderia var. Pumila, which has a pretty blue foliage, has come back into fashion, and looks good against the yew hedge.      All the dahlias are going strong, and in fact some of them are only just beginning to flower, due to the difficult conditions early on in the season.      If we are lucky there will not be a frost for some time.         We had some charming Italians round the garden yesterday, from all parts of Italy,  and I felt very pleased as one of the ladies told me she found my garden very inspiring.       This was at tea.     It was nice to end the season this way.

Photographs from the bottom of the garden

   
   

Autumn photographs, late September, 2016

   
   

Back from CORFU, 18th September, 2016

Polly has worked so hard whilst I have been away there seems to me nothing to do except a small amount of cutting back to expose good things which are covered up.    The light is much softer and the berries this year in the garden are phenomenal.     In particular Sorbus Vilmorinii and Crateagus Laciniata which looks as if it has stepped straight out of a Klimt painting.     Some of the dahlias are a success this year, and some are not.      It is really difficult to choose good ones by just looking on line, you really need to see them.     Jescot Julie still remains my favourite.     On Tuesday we have another photographic workshop for Clive Nichols that I am looking forward to, and two of my friends are coming, Anna Buxton, and Diana Berry.     It is more fun for me when I have people that I know.       We have someone coming who has a large blog in the States, who is going to write it up.     In the autumn border I can’t make up my mind if I like Coreopsis Tripteris, as it is quite a harsh yellow.       I quite fancy Helianthus Sheila’s Sunshine as it is very tall and waves all over the place, also being a much softer colour.   Sorbus Joseph Rock is looking pretty amazing.     In the par terre there is too much bare earth which is because early on the dahlias never got away, or were munched by slugs.       There is always some hidden catastrophe!    

It is so lovely to be back with my two dogs, they would never bite me hard like the cats did. I wonder if the little white kitten is managing to hang on to her place at Prosilio.     Autumn  is so lovely as the flowers seem to hang on for a long time, due to cooler temperatures and moisture in the morning.     For the first time in ages I am feeling inspired to do something new in Corfu when we go back for a week mid October.      I have e mailed Giannis about it but not had a reply yet.        It really looks beautiful here,  particularly down the bottom of the garden.