Gardener's Diary - Autumn's Kiss

Day 41 of meteorological autumn

I didn’t write a newsletter last week, it’s unlike me and the first I have missed.

I have been working long days and Saturdays too, as I have exciting news...I’m visiting Japan for three weeks in November.

I’ve wanted to visit Japan ever since I was a teenager and the Monty Don series on Japan certainly played its part in encouraging me to save and visit.

The current plan is to visit Tokyo, Kyoto, Shikoku, Okayama and Fukuoka. If anyone has any suggestions or advice for the trip, I’d love to hear your recommendations and thoughts - please comment below :-)

Gardening Jobs

I’ve been working hard to ensure all my clients won’t miss me when I’m away. I must say, I’ve never seen such a busy October.

I have picked up some new clients too which is unusual for this time of year - it’s a good feeling to have my business thriving.

There’s been a lot of rain, yet I haven’t let it stop me - tramping through gardens in my waterproofs.

I spoke with a fellow gardener and we both discussed why we loved this time of year. The yellow, orange and red tones in the trees and the last of the flowers hanging on before the frost hits. It’s all very charming - when the sun is out with a nice chill to the air - it’s quite magical.

The days have been filled with lawn mowing lawns, cutting hedges, deadheading roses - the list goes on. Yet, I’ve mainly been very busy planting bulbs, so many glorious bulbs.

I’ve been completing many one-off seasonal jobs: hard pruning multiple Trachelospermum (evergreen jasmine), updating my container displays and pruning and cleaning large species of house plants (as I also work indoors too).

Bulbs

Bulbs this year are: Galanthus nivalis (snow drops), Leucojums, Crocuses, Alliums, my current favourite - Allium siculum (also known as Nectarscordum).

I’ve been in a pickle with tulips and feeling a little silly. I work next door to a lovely gardener every Tuesday - we talk over the fence, sharing our thoughts on the week and talking about gardening jobs we’ve had.

He mentioned that he doesn’t plant his tulips until January and since researching, the RHS states to plant them late into Autumn. This avoids the dreaded, tulip fire distorting the bulbs with fungal leaves. I’m glad the cold snap has arrived so keep your fingers crossed for me as I’ve already popped a majority of my tulip bulbs in the ground.

Last year, I planted my bulbs much later as was less organised and it worked out well for me - yet this time, my organisation has got the better of me. Tulips should be stored in cool, dry sheds yet most of my client’s sheds are damp, with rats - bar a few.

In order to resolve this, next year I will order from Farmer Gracy and have them delivered later, planting in late November.

Garden highlights

I have been quite struck by the gorgeous aster’s which are appearing everywhere. Many are considered weeds, Symphyotrichum novi-belgii (Michaelmas daisy) sprout up in the cracks between pavement and spread like wild fire - a light lilac petal and a nice flower to end the season.

Picture taken from : https://www.gardenia.net/plant/aster-novi-belgii

I also saw these gorgeous Chrysanthemum zawadskii (Japanese aster) last year at Wisley - look at that colour, isn’t nature incredible?

Ginkgo biloba

Also, a few newsletters ago I mentioned that when they plant Ginkgo biloba trees, they use either male or female trees to prevent seed formation.

While in Marylebone, I noticed a street of trees had developed fruit - plump, round, yellow fruit which from a distance, looked a little like green gage plums. The fruit supposedly has a terrible smell so they only plant male or female trees to avoid the trees pollinating one another.

This suggests that someone misidentified a male or female tree and now these trees lining the street can freely create fruit. How cheerful!

Autumn’s kiss

It’s a beautiful time of year in the garden, I like to call it Autumn’s Kiss when the tree begin to take on amber hues. The Cornus trees have become a gorgeous red and the Acers a symphony of colours. I pass by rows of orange lined street trees as I drive to work - wow!

Allotment

Not much work to do at the allotment lately, we sowed some extra lettuce we can enjoy during Autumn and mainly have been harvesting.

We had one more batch of tomatoes to collect and last week, we admired the fruits of our labour. This year growing San Marzanos - for sauces and storing and also, Artisian Bumble Bee Mix which work well in salads.

My partner has been slow roasting tomatoes and freezing them - a very pleasing process to watch. He slices them in half, slow roasts them for a few hours then stores them in reusable freezer bags once they have cooled - et voilà.

The other day, he made us a fresh tomato pasta for dinner - tomato, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and of course some pecorino that we brought back from Italy - it was so delicious. Home grown produce has so much flavour - the tomatoes sweet and tangy.

It’s been a bad year for sweetcorn, the squirrels and rats cleaned out the plants while I was away in Italy. I’m happy to share however next year, I’m going to think a little more about anti squirrel devices.

Aside from this, soon it will be time for me to tidy up the allotment. I plan to whip my compost heap back into shape as I haven’t had great success over the past year. I have a huge amount of bind weed and I have trouble getting in up to temperature enough to compost it - I won’t give up and have been studying Charles Dowding’s Youtube videos.

Also, I’m sure I have mentioned on my newsletter how much I adore my allotment shed. It’s my happy place and was hand built by one of the previous allotment tenants. Soon, I’m going to dedicate a entire newsletter to it so you can all appreciate its wonder!