Autumn Colour

The last folks who looked after my garden knew what they were doing methinks! Its Mid autumn and my garden is still full of colour! This through no fault of my own! I have been happily photographing the results of the previous owners handy work! I only hope that this time next autumn that the garden is still as colourful! Thought I would post a couple of photos of the Autumn Garden. There are more available on my Flickr Photostream in the Autumn Garden Set

The following is a bunch of Aster Amellus 'Sonia' - Michaelmas Daisies. These things are seriously going crazy. Still bursting with colour even despite the frost we are now getting.

Another View in the sunlight this time. I waited for an hour coming back every 5 minutes in the late afternoon to finally get this view of the flowers in sunlight!

Of course for a more traditional Autumn scene in any Garden, the view through the window on a seriously frosty morning.

It has been a very warm September and until recently a pretty good October. So nice in fact even the Rambling Rose has put in another appearance!

One of my favourites, the Cosmos Atrosanguineus or Chocolate flower is still putting up a brave appearance as well. These flowers have been in bloom now for a couple of months over the end of the Summer and now through Autumn. They genuinely give off a chocolate scent which can't be sneezed at!

Of course we have had our fair share of rain as well through Autumn. At one stage a couple of inches of rain in 2 days in W5. Great weather for ducks, unless the particular duck in question is an aqua-phobe I guess?

As highlighted above. More Autumn Garden snaps can be seen in my n the Autumn Garden Set on flickr. There is also a Summer Garden Set with loads more snaps contained. Need to decide next year maybe how I might organise this. Might make some monthly sets to track changes in the garden.

Cheers

M

IT's Days Like Today You Pray The Folks On Gardeners' World Know What They Are Talking About!

So inspired by Gardeners' World, from last Friday, I decided that I would scarify my lawn today. I have two areas of lawn, one at the front of the house, and rather surprisingly, one at the back of the house. The weather has hampered efforts to get both the front and the back done however. The Front is complete, as can be seen on the left but I only managed to get halfway through the back lawn.

As you can see the lawn now looks pretty grim, so right now I am praying that the folks on Gardeners world know what they are on about and next Spring I should have a nice lawn to start mowing again! I don't find out until Spring so by then they will probably be long gone anyway so I won't be able to chase them down ;-).

Maybe they are playing a horrible practical joke on lawn growers around the UK! "I know, lets make everyone stuff up their lawn this week. Then we'll open a lawn consultancy and make a killing" ;-). I am sure that they are not that way inclined! Still you never know.

So Autumn lawn maintenance is pretty simple but it is pretty hard yakka. Especially after spending an hour an a half this morning doing some back breaking community gardening in the Denison Ludlow Green. The people that live around the green own it, so once in a while we do some gardening there. This was the first time I made it, and today we were digging out the edges. OMG! Hard work! Not sure my back has recovered, although not helped by working on the lawn afterwards.

So the steps to take (and I will let you know next Spring if this actually works!):

• Mow the lawn first and rake up any loose cuttings
• Using a Springtine rake, rake through the lawn first up and down and then across. This will lift out any thatch and dead grass underneath the green grass on top. Thatch gets in the way of water and fertiliser (if you use it) getting to the roots of the grass so apparently you have to get rid of it once in a while! The picture below shows just how much thatch had built up in my lawn!
• Then aerate your lawn. Taking a pitch fork dig in and loosen the ground every 10cms. This lets air get to the roots of the grass allowing it to grow better.
• Then get some Autumn lawn food to sprinkle on. Something with phosphate and potassium. Whatever you do don't use a nitrogen based fertiliser! A bad choice in Autumn as it results in fast leafy growth which just gets obliterated in winter.
• Water the fertiliser in amd if there are any bare patches re-sow with some more grass seed.
• Rake the new grass seed in.

Simple! If somewhat backbreaking work! Below you can see how much thatch you get out of your lawn. This picture was taken after mowing and after I had raked all of the lawn clippings away! Crazy stuff.

SO I am hoping that after all of this work, and I still have the back lawn to complete, that next Spring the lawn will look something like it did when we moved in! See below. If it doesn't I will be disappointed and write a pointed letter to Gardeners' World ;-)

Anyway have fun! After 4 hours solid gardening I am off to sit still for a little!

Cheers

m