Garden Log - September? October?

Another thoroughly tardy post. I do actually have an excuse this time however! A few (to me) exciting things were taking place mid-September that I wanted finished before I started taking photos and writing my gardeny drivel.

The first and foremost thing was (drum-roll please....) A FENCE!!!!! Who would have thunk it. A full year after it was blown down, the fence has finally been replaced!

The Fence. In all its fency glory.

It is brilliant. The garden looks SO much better for it. The whole place looks bigger, especially the borders. It isn't solid so the wind can get through it and there is enough room underneath it to allow roving hedgehogs and the like to traverse from garden to garden. I can't wait to get things climbing on it - I'm planning on getting a couple of Clematis Viticella as they will apparently tolerate it being a bit shady, and I'll be able to cut them right back every year. The only souring point of the whole thing was that the ham fisted philistine (and believe me, that's me being very charitable compared to the words that first came to me lips) that built it decided that it would be perfectly OK to bury a load of my plants with the earth from the post holes and tear up a load more of them by the roots. I was furious when I came home to discover this, but as it was our neighbour that had organised the whole thing and it was done while we were out, I never got to vent my fury on the person responsible. But never mind. The fence is worth it, and the beauty of plants is that most of them will come back unscathed next year.

The second development is a new border.

 The back of the house gets the full sun in the afternoon and up until recently this was only really being appreciated by the plants in the small patio bed (not really that small, but dominated by a rather large Hydrangea) and a few bits and pieces in pots. There had been a bed there previously that has been left to go to grass, so I decided that I would dig it out again. This will be brilliant next year because it will allow me to grow loads of sun lovers in the ground and get the most out of this bit of the garden.

I'm also planning on using the part of it nearest the back door as a herb patch. I've started planting it up with a few bits I had lying around and some stuff that was kindly donated by the mother in law. There's a jasmine next to the arch that has spent the last year in a pot, a clump of chives, some lambs ear, the Delphiniums that were previously in the front garden (that I decided to move because they kept getting flattened by the wind round there), a hardy Geranium, and an Acanthus Mollis. The donations from the mother in law are a nice fern (species unknown...) and a herbaceous Peony that was planted in the wrong place in her garden and never flowered. I'm really looking forward to seeing (and smelling) that next year.

The third development was that my dad very kindly did the lions share of taking down the Ash tree that I'd spent the summer cursing for getting right in the way of the rare bits of afternoon sun. The top has been taken out (which has solved the shade problem but I do want the whole thing down) and the roots have started to be hacked away. This was bloody hard work as the tree is in a really awkward place to get to with large tools. I've bought a big wood drill bit, so when my other half eventually gets a weekend away from the damn hospital where she works and I can have some time away from weekend child care, I should be able to finish the job by a campaign of attrition - i.e. drilling big holes in it until it falls over.

The rest of the garden is still looking quite good for a one year old, but you can tell that autumn is slowly getting its hooks in. Everything is winding down and getting ready for a winter snooze, building up the energy for what should hopefully be a damn good show next year.

The Poppies are still pushing out their fantastically redder than red flowers.

The Cape Daisies and Cornflowers still looking great, with the triffid like Nasturtiums in the background trying to take over that corner of the garden.

These Toad Lillies (Tricyrtis Formosana) are really nice. Shame I couldn't persuade the camera to focus on them properly. Bring back manual focus... Ok, so I could have it if I bought a decent camera, but that seems a bit extravagant for taking pictures of the garden.

Hopefully next year will see more success for things climbing on the obelisk, and I should be able to make better use of this awesome pot. It does seem to have aged very pleasingly though. And I never did get around to covering it in yoghurt...

Lots of goodies for next year. And some very badly bolting Coriander.

Nicotiana and Sweet Peas still going strong, although the Nicotiana has had to be propped up, and I think I may be losing the battle against the Sweet Peas going to seed.

It's all looking as good as can be expected, although we had our first proper frost last night, so who knows how long it will last. For now though, I can go outside and enjoy a cup coffee in the autumn sunshine and feel very pleased with what has been achieved this year.