Late October - And The Garden Is Still Hanging On...

Up until a few weeks ago I would receive SMS photos from my mother of the yellow roses I planted in her garden outside Oslo this summer, but Jack Frost arrived and now Mamma's garden is asleep.

Our Surrey garden, however, is still going strong. Coming originally from a much colder climate I am enchanted with all the flowers this late in the season. Dahlias, of course, are standing firm in the rain but so are my lovely white snapdragons and most of my roses.

Antirrhinum Majus 'White Giant'

 

Dahlia 'Crème de Cassis'

 

Pink Achillea - unknown variety

 

Cactus Dahlia 'Purple Gem'

 

Rosa 'Lady Of The Lake' (by David Austin)

 

IKEA refresh with Bemz

Photo: Bemz.

Just a very quick note to let you know that BEMZ is currently offering 20% off their fabric covers for IKEA furniture with the promotion code thankyou20%

It is Not Too Late to Plant Roses

The garden has started to wind down. There are still a surprising number of flowers left but gaps are appearing in the borders and it's a good time to reflect on what I can do to improve the colours for next year. We planted purples two years ago; lavender, salvias, verbena bonariensis, delphinium, fan lobelia - lots and lots of purple. The bees love it, and we love the bees. We added some white roses last year for contrast and it's been a very restful colour scheme. Now we'd like to add a splash of colour here and there to give it a little lift, a bit like adding a zest of lime to a drink. I have chosen apricot roses from David Austin, so nothing too zesty but with enough presence to lift and balance our colour scheme. It is difficult to be modest when perusing the long list of Austin roses... I managed to narrow it down to these three:

Sweet Juliet

 

Abraham Darby

 

Julia's Rose

 

I like unashamedly romantic English roses in the garden, like Sweet Juliet and Abraham Darby. Julia's Rose is a little wild card but I think the toffee-lilac colouring looks intriguing - and it is apparently much loved by florists, so it should look good in bouquets for the house.

 

David Austin is offering 15% off all rose orders until the end of October when using the offer code KHF.

 

Autumn Beauty

To me autumn feels quite 'vemodig', wistful, as I really am a summer person. But the colours of autumn, they are quite something. Everywhere I turn there is a scene or a detail worthy of a photo.

Like this humdrum yellow car, sublimated by the yellow leaves above it.

 

 

Right now it's time to pull out my down coat and woolly hat from storage, as we're off to watch the races in Cambridgeshire. And the fens are cold..!

Frosty

It's been three days since our boiler broke down following the annual service. Seven days left to go before the replacement part arrives and can be fitted by the 'guilty' plumber... SEVEN days more with no heating or hot water! Gahd.

It's been sponge baths in the basin for days now. I'm off to boil large quantities of water so that I can wash my hair. Yay...