October 3rd, 2021 - Autumn gardening

It’s the best time of year for making changes in my cottage garden

I feel the need to make some big big changes in my cottage garden, even if it means it won’t be so cottagey.

The wallflower Bowles Mauve is a fabulous shrub. Mine flowered every day of the year for about 4 years.  It is a short lived plant though and it suddenly went from a cloud of purple to a tangle of brown sticks.

I could have trimmed it and hoped it would revive next year but I decided to dig it out and am glad I did.  This is what I dug out looked like.

 

It was tired and old and totally fed up with flowering.  It had sprawled over a nice big area so I now have a fresh space for something else.

Making changes by digging things out

I also dug out huge clumps of the most common hardy geranium, the pink one, which was also dry and tired and spindley.

The soil was great after 30 years of adding organic matter.  I’m very keen on making compost and you can read more about that here

I want to have more roses as my current ones are so unsuccessful.  I have 3.  Each one does its best but the blooms come one at a time, one bud every 5 weeks.  That’s hopeless for a decent supply of roses to cut for a vase.

It’s a lovely rose but I would like more than one bud every 3 weeks.  See my Instagram feed for some photos of the few roses I do have at the moment.

This new space would be great for a couple of roses and I must must resist the urge to fill it up with more ditsy 9cm plants that I have waiting for a space. I am always in danger of popping in yet more oregano, more thyme, more daisy, more alpine strawberry.

What is a nice big space now would then be a smaller space surrounded by an array of little ground hugging plants.  Yet again.  I wouldn’t put it past me to pop in another blooming hardy geranium.  I MUST NOT.

I will of course want to cover every inch of soil with something before the winter.  I don’t like roses sticking out of bare soil but common sense tells me I need to plant the roses first and add the ground cover plants afterwards.  At the same time I could pop in some small narcissi bulbs and some alliums.  I’d better order some then.

This is such an exciting time of year when the ground is warm and wet, anything planted will put down good roots before the Spring and all possibilities beckon for next year.

Making changes before winter sets in

There’s also the frisson of time being limited, time running out before gardening becomes a struggle rather than a joy.  I don’t plant tulips till November/December so no hurry there. You can read about them here

I look forward to showing you my new roses once I’ve put them in.  I’ll be buying from davidaustinroses.co.uk

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