And breathe!

I started this post at the beginning of September when I had been away for a week and returned to my gardens to find that autumn had arrived. August was hot, cold, cloudy, sunny, rainy and windy and already September is over with a mixture of storms and sunshine as well.

The hoped for Indian summer never came but there were, and still are, all those richly coloured late summer flowers and abundant pumpkins and squashes.

Dahlias at Houghton Hall

Harvested pumpkins left to ripen.

The dahlias have been good in my gardens too, I divided up the tubers in spring before planting in pots in the greenhouse so there were a good number but always room for improvement.

 

 

Also looking good for August and September the delicate looking, but actually quite tough, Japanese anenomes and the jolly rudbeckia.

 

August was a month of trying to keep it all going, like juggling balls in the air. A bit in the vegetable garden, a bit in the borders, doing the lawn edges and looking out for the giant sow thistles which seem to arrive fully grown. I always reach a point where I feel overwhelmed with amount of work still to be done and then it’s autumn and things that are cut back, stay cut back and phew! We can all breathe again.

 

I’m not saying that there is not still loads to do,  the weeds are still growing and deadheading continues, but I am taking time to enjoy the long awaited asters (Symphotrichum) and my head is full of plans for next year. The vegetable garden is slowly being cleared and I have even sown some late summer crops, a first for me. Tulips have been ordered and it will soon be time to cosy up with the seed catalogues.

Meanwhile, the roses carry on flowering.

 

Visit to Houghton Hall, Norfolk

Full Moon Circle by Richard Long

Houghton Hall and Gardens in the heart of rural Norfolk, walled gardens, sculptures and a ha ha. We didn’t go in the house as it cost a bit more and there was a separate music festival in the grounds which provided a constant background of banging music, but here’s what we did see, until the camera battery ran out!

There was a combination of permanent sculptures by different artists and the Earth Sky exhibition by Richard Long.  It gave a focus to our wanderings and I do like a map to follow.  Through the stable block courtyard and a block of pleached limes, the first sculpture we stopped at was in front of the house, A Line in Norfolk, made of Norfolk carrstone. And that’s what it is.

The Full Moon Circle, which has been here since 2003, was my favourite and the bossy man was right, it does catch the light better looking towards the house although you want to get the long vista in looking the other way.

 

More sculptures were hidden in an area of hedges and trees and included a solid concrete shed but I really liked the building lined with benches their backs sloped to give the perfect view of the sky through the hole in the roof.

Skyspace Seldom Seen by James Turrell

A round about way back over the vast area of mown grass, along the ha ha, and retracing our steps through the courtyard to get to the walled garden.

The walled garden is divided into four by hedges, with some of these quarters subdivided, and two main flower borders down the middle. High hedges and small feature gardens mean that you never know what is around the next corner.

Following the outside wall, we are first treated to a bit of cold frame and glasshouse envy. What an amazing place to sit! It has a trickling fountain at the back with goldfish and a stunning view to the long borders out the front. To each side there are more greenhouses with proper work going on.

Cold frames in the walled garden.

Box hedges, so neatly trimmed, are a big feature of the walled garden and next along from here features an intricate pattern of hedges filled with scented bedding and punctuated with clematis.

Clematis pyramids surrounded by beds of chocolate cosmos, heliotrope and scented leaved pelagoniums.

Round the corner, more delights, a mass of pink Japanese anenomes in between the mellow red brick walls and box hedges.

After this, tempted by the sound of running water, I forgot the plan to stick to the edge and went in search of fountains.

In the foreground is Waterflame by Jeppe Hein but I didn’t stay long enough to find out that there is a flame that comes out of the top, it was also here that the battery began to run out on the camera so the next shots required waiting for the battery to charge enough then taking quickly before the camera shut down again. Lesson learnt!

This is the other pond with fountain in the middle and more fish. An enclosed space with only one entrance and full of spirally box and Verbena bonariensis. A peaceful space with tempting benches to sit awhile.

Back on track following the outside wall, some inspirational planting and something that I might be able to recreate on a smaller scale. A great combination of heleniums and sunflowers even if I don’t have the wall for a backdrop.

And the view from that pergola is of an ornamental fruit cage surrounded by dahlias in suitably orangey colours and then more fruit bushes.

There is a border devoted to named dahlias and small but old looking fruit trees. I am afraid by now we were tiring and knowing that we had a long drive home we hurried a bit and I completely missed the vegetable beds. Two herbaceous borders flank the central pathway and a bit late in the day I discovered the rose garden with a pretty sunken fountain and seating area.

The central path in two distinct sections looking towards the glasshouse. Nice mown stripes!

A whiz round the toy soldier collection in the stable block and the shop filled with lovely but very, very expensive artworks and we were done. Well worth the long journey and perhaps a return visit when the roses are out.

The front/back (where the drive is) Houghton Hall 

Holidays

I am off on holiday soon so I have been trying to catch up as much as possible before I leave my gardens for 2 weeks. The dry spell is a mixed blessing. Once I have done an area it should stay presentable for a couple of weeks, and the lawn edges have stopped getting so untidy, but it’s been quite a job getting some of the bigger weeds out of the ground. 

I have been cutting back everything that is even slightly going over and dead-heading the roses and dahlias as I go. So away with the Hemerocalis, Acanthus and masses of feverfew leaving Agapanthus, roses, Verbena bonariensis and Crocosmia still in flower and Michaelmas daisies to come.

 

In the vegetable plot I have picked the sweet peas, even those with only a small bit of flower showing, and given the greenhouse a really good soak and feed. I have also cut off the lower leaves of the tomato plants to get the tomatoes to ripen. At home I will be harvesting as many vegetables as I can, mostly beans and an exhausting supply of courgettes at the moment, and likewise having a long watering session before I go.

I am hoping that it rains a bit while I am away as the garden needs refreshing but not so much that the weeds start growing again!

Rainy days

Agapanthus 

Working in the rain today meant one of those do I wear waterproofs or not dilemmas. Having started the day with a sharp pain in my leg and a bee in my welly I opted for waterproof trousers and taking my coat on and off according to the intensity of the drizzle.

So  it’s been a hot and sticky day but a great opportunity to take pictures of flowers with pretty raindrops! And with no radio plenty of thinking time. The dahlias and agapanthus are looking particularly good but some inspiration needed is needed to fill a few gaps now the poppies have finished.

Echinops and Italian parsley

And joy of joy, in the process of cutting back, I found my second best trowel which I mislaid in the border several weeks ago. I have been using my best one which worries me as I would be most upset if I lost it. Once it went missing and turned up in a customer’s garage 6 months later. Not that I’m scatty or anything!

Verbena Bonariensis