Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
(Albert Camus)
Autumn is galloping ahead. It’s a season that signifies ending, and there’s a whole lotta difference between the tentative early part and the cold, wet, dark tail end.
But it’s also a kind of new beginning. Like springtime, autumn feels alive. We look ahead to new things – warm jumpers and cosy scarves, bright days, gorgeous autumn leaves and festivals that lighten the darkness.
The kind of things we’re doing in the garden are very different from spring and summer. Then, it was all about planting and growth. Now, the focus is on maintenance, consolidation and getting ready for winter.
September: with summer’s best of weather and autumn’s best of cheer*
*Helen Hunt Jackson, poet and activist for Native American rights
Oddly, September doesn’t have all that much gardening to do. Bedding plants are still flowering, the dahlias are pressing on with their bonkers blooms, and it’s way too early to plant stuff for spring.
At this time of year I feel the need to use up every last drop of fine or warm weather. Not that summer 2021 brought us much of that – if I cleared out my wardrobe based on how often I’d worn something in the past year, most of my summer clothes would be gone.
Luckily September often gives us lovely dry, sunny days and this year was no exception.
We made the most of it with some non-garden activities. Seeing friends for walks on the beach at Swanage, hanging out in Plumstead, clambering over Dorset hillsides and stuffing our faces at the Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival.
A garden party where we caught up with even more old friends from the Women’s Equality Party.
Watching two home games in Shaftesbury FC’s brief but thrilling FA cup run. Exploring National Trust properties. And an unusual night away at the Horse Hut and Lotus Spa in Hampshire.
October: passing a milestone at Woodridge
October is when it really picks up. The leaves fall. Oh boy do they fall! The sunsets are magnificent. And the time left to sort things out suddenly feels short and precious.
The tidying and preparation for winter began in earnest. Laura was busy pruning the things you’re allowed to prune now, cutting back and moving perennials, and bringing more order to the barely-controlled chaos we have around here.
Near the end of the month we celebrated one whole year at Woodridge.
October 2020 began with us living in Orpington and ended 102 miles away in Shaftesbury. Since then we’ve been learning to live a very different lifestyle, of which the garden is only one part. Shaftesbury is a brilliant town and I really like it here. If only I could persuade everyone I care about to live here too, it might just be perfect.
October also has the worst milestone of the year – the end of daylight saving. I hate that day – I know it’s nearly winter – no need to rub it in!
Comparing then and now
It seems that the trees are holding onto far more leaves than they had at the same time last year. I pulled out a couple of photos from then and the whole garden is generally a couple of weeks slower to turn than last year. I’ve no idea what that means – one good stormy night should make them catch up.
This isn’t to say that the leaves aren’t falling. They are. It’s a constant task, to blow and rake them up, and to keep the gutters clear. I’m struggling to convince Simon that the superabundance of fallen leaves is not actually a conspiracy against him. The acers are nearly done – the beeches have hardly even started. This will run and run.
We don’t do man caves around here
But we do have a shed. At first glance it was an impressive beast – 5m x 3.5m, with its own electricity and water supply. On closer inspection there were problems – rotten boards, leaking roof and (not unrelated) a power supply box that filled with water and blew the RCD in the house.
Over the months we’ve toyed with knocking it down and starting again. During the brief period when we contemplated building a garage, we thought we’d use that for storage instead. (Then the building quotes came in at nearly 100x the value of the car itself and we came to our senses.)
So we figured we’d bodge some of the rotten gaps with boards and that squirty stuff, and get a handyman to replace the roofing felt.
Enter Andy.
Andy reckoned he could replace the rotten boards as well as the felt, and the shed would be good for many years to come. So (with some help from my friend, Trish) we cleared working space for him both inside and outside the shed and let him go for it.
Once he finished tearing it apart and re-building it – “it turned out to be a bigger job than I expected” – we slathered the remaining old boards with wood preserver and repainted the entire thing.
The result is a shed that, if not quite just like a bought one, is a pretty good facsimile. With the addition of hooks for tools, all the usual shed bric-a-brac, and the electricity reconnected, we’re pretty pleased with it.
Laurels, yews and wobbly conifers
You’ll know by now that we’ve got it in for laurels and yews. The campaign continues.
First up, a huge laurel that has been monstering a lovely camellia, pushing other trees out of shape and blocking some of our countryside view. This was a big chainsaw mission and created a mountain of cuttings with many trips to the tip.
The upside, apart from more breathing space in that corner of the garden, is a pile of firewood that should be ready for next winter. Waste not, want not.
Another yew has outlived its welcome. This one half blocks the beginning of a path and interrupts the eyeline from below as you come up the drive. So it’s a goner too.
Finally, following up on the arboricultural consultant’s advice – after our neighbour’s fear of falling tree-related catastrophe – we had the immensely tall and alarmingly wobbly conifer cut down.
People working with chainsaws and giant wood chippers are unsettling at the best of times. Throw in the fact they had to do it from our neighbour’s driveway, and it gets pretty stressful. Acer Tree Surgeons did an excellent job and meticulously cleared up every last bit of wood chip. So now, when the wind blows a gale, I sleep a lot better knowing that tree isn’t going to take out a garage full of vintage cars.
Apparently you can never have too many bulbs
I tweeted in early October that I’d ordered 475 spring bulbs and wondered if that was a lot. According to my friend Ann, “Nope. Nowhere near enough.”
Succumbing to peer pressure I ordered another 210 bulbs a week later. Still not enough, apparently.
But it’s still too early to plant most of them – they are one of the first jobs earmarked for the start of November. Can I resist the temptation to buy even more before then? Watch this space.
Other jobs in September and October
You know the drill by now – we did some of this but Laura did most of it. Between us we:
- cleared and cut back various shrubs, including hebes, lavender, buddleia, hypericum, azalea
- trimmed beech and lonicera hedges
- pruned the rambling roses
- mowed and strimmed
- weeded various beds – hopefully the last of the year
- removed some pathetic shrub roses
- trimmed a large yew and holly tree in front garden to open up space between them
- moved under-performing peonies to better locations
- cut back crocosmia, geraniums, asters, and other perennials
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