My Little Garden 21st Oct 2023

3 min readOct 21, 2023

It might only be October, but I’ve already made a new year’s resolution that I’m not going to work in anyone else’s garden next year. I was going to give it another twelve months, but there’s so many things I want to do that I didn’t have time for in the busiest months, so it’s time for a change. There, I’ve said it, so now I just need to stick to my plan…..

Since last Saturday, I’ve planted around 1000 bulbs, and some of them have even been in my garden. The tulips are still waiting as I never start to think about planting those until at least the half term holiday, which is next week. Then it all depends on the temperatures. We had one slight frost last Sunday, but since then it’s been mixed, and the week ended with copious amounts of rain thanks to Storm Babet.

The garden is looking quite autumnal but still has lots of colour, so finding six things for Saturday hasn’t been too much of a challenge.

Tassels

Garrya eliptica ‘James Roof’has excelled itself in terms of growth and catkin production this year. I’m going to enjoy them as the shrub needs a good prune next year and will sulk for at least twelve months.

2. Campanula

I like the fact that this always produces some late flowers. Here it is clambering up the wall of the old water feature that is now planted with alliums, irises, and miniature narcissi.

3. Not a weed

I went back to a very challenging garden last week that I partially planted last spring. I had included some of this Japanese aster, Kalimeris yomena ‘Shogun’, because I find it a very useful plant in my garden, and I thought it might survive potential neglect. It did, but the client thought it looked like a weed. Well, I like it…