I write this as autumn is nearing its end and only now are our deciduous trees starting to change colour and prepare for their winter dormancy. It feels like this is really late for them this year. it is now nippy enough to have our fire on inside the house in the day time. The fire is warming my legs as I write this!
There have been so many butterflies of late. It has felt very much like we have been living in a butterfly house which has been very special. Their babies have been waking up lately too made evident by the leaf bites we can now see!
The cooler weather does slow down growth of our plants and seedlings and I am looking forward to it slowing down the growth of the grass in the garden beds. We have been slowly chipping away at different areas of the main garden. It feels manageable when I weed, make an offering (in the form of manures and compost), mulch and plant into just little segments of our patchwork wild garden.
Everyday is a day to water, transplant and sow. We now have an amazing undercover space that Pete built with a shade cloth roof which will be very handy in summer when it starts to really sizzle and it will be interesting to see if the frost still gets in and under there.
The zinnias and dahlias are coming to an end and I'm keen for them to start setting seed for me to collect for next time. There are some really beautiful colours showing in the zinnias that I would love to replicate - in particular a light cream yellow. I'm also wanting to press on with making areas plantable where the dahlias have been but I need to wait for them to die back on their own as I believe that is the time when they are actively storing energy for the next growing season.
We have planted quite a number of seedlings out to overwinter and bloom (fingers crossed) in the spring time. Snapdragons, stock, statice, lunaria, poppies, scabiosa, queen ann's lace, linaria, strawflower, rose mallow and larkspur. The anemones and ranunculus have popped up and I always feel like I have never bought enough! Godetia has not enjoyed the early sowing as all of them have grown tall and leggy and I don't know how well they will do after such a rocky start to life. I am going to sow more godetia seed now the weather has cooled to see if that makes a difference.
We will be doing the flowers for our first wedding of 2020 in September and every time I am in the garden I think about the possibilities. I hope for early blooms and favourable weather - so much is out of our hands and coming to terms with that is important! I am loving being a part of a network of local growers so any stress around making sure we have flowers available subsides when I know that there are people I can approach to buy from if necessary.
I have lately been listening to podcasts and audio books while I garden and have really enjoyed it.
Some podcasts I enjoy are:
The Regeneration
Botanical Brouhaha
Futuresteading
Low Tox Life
The Flower Podcast
Gumboots by the Sea
One Wild Ride
The Curious Farmer
Nature and Nourish
Pip
Dumbo Feather
Thrive Podcast #forflorists
I have also just finished listening to Big Little Lies on Audible. I never use to listen to anything while I gardened but was missing listening to my favourite podcasts since not driving around quite so much. Not sure if I can go back to the quiet now!
Keep growing x