Autumn 2021

Epilogue, the Mitcheldean Garden 2021
Autumn

This page is part of a series of garden blogs from 2021. Click here for the index.

The UK is a thoroughly depressing place at the moment. We have an incompetent government which also happens to be unprincipled and corrupt and, it seems, a majority of the population is totally unmoved by the fact. Unfortunately with the pandemic we have no winter escape and who knows what further problems await. So a rare sunny day brought me into the garden to cheer myself up because if you put the blinkers on, then it's almost possible to pretend that it's still summer.

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First though, the autumn colours, I'm now starting to gather the leaf fall because it will be invested in our flower beds. First the forsythia and second the upper garden.

The patio has been cleared and swept. Winter pansies are in the end tubs and the remaining smaller tubs of 'million bells' and African marigolds are squatting in the other two. Outside the living room we can also still enjoy the orange begonias which will need a proper frost to be finally halted.

One dahlia has stood out this year. The camera suggests it is white but it's colouring is more subtle than that, the ends of the pointed part in particular are mauve. It's the last one in the ground in the upper garden.

All around are others in groups waiting to dry out so they can be put in the garage once 'topped and tailed'. They will be joined by the large begonias but these red ones too show no sign of throwing in the towel just yet.

The only baby begonias which are not in #1 greenhouse are those which went into the ground in early June, they were flowering then and are still flowering five months later. We do appreciate their colour but we will try to recover them when a frost is indicated, there should be room for them in #1 greenhouse against the south wall of the bungalow which will give them their best chance of surviving.

If the petunias had eyes, they would be jealous of the cyclamen which spend the daylight hours on the living room windowsill. Next door, #35 now boasts a tidy lawn and hanging baskets with winter pansies, an excellent choice. In the foreground, Yuehong's dahlias refuse to give up, the red ones are finished but the pink and purple ones are still as good as the picture suggests.

This is the view of them looking towards the greenhouse and it seems we were given an 'ugly duckling', a delicious orange one which has proved to be a late developer. We will keep them separate from the others and probably pop them back next year although not as closely spaced, we had no real choice this year as they were newly bought and started later than the rest.

Our fuchsias were not impressed by our summer weather but eventually they condescended to flower; that on the left is in the bed in front of the upper wall and that on the right in front of the bungalow. In fact the fuchsias here were the exception, they had actually flowered very well until they had to be cut back for the new windows to be put in.

We have traditional fuchsias along the patio, with all Yuehong's pot plants they are normally easily ignored but right now they have only the begonias as serious rivals and can be better appreciated.

It would be fair to say that the fuchsias down by the road have been sulking but like their counterparts on the patio they have been doing well lately.

Our purple and white dahlias grow and divide like weeds, they are now banished to the peripheries of the garden, but they too have to be prepared for overwintering. This is a small proportion of them sitting on the lower steps. They have already lost their 'tops' and have since lost their 'tails' or roots. There are two large planters at the bottom, far too heavy to move and they also have begonias.

There are boxes and boxes of hyacinths and tulips old and new in the garage, it's still not cold enough to plant them out. Last year we had a 'cold snap' which wreaked havoc with the dahlias and begonias, this year I plan to wrap the most vulnerable ones and to keep them apart in our numerous Lidl cardboard boxes.