Wednesday 30 November 2016

Snapshots - October 2016

 Welcome to October! This is the month when spring really kicks in. The weather was up and down which became the norm for spring - our weather in winter was much more settled! A bit of rain is always good for the garden of course and luckily the blossom trees still bloom no matter the weather. The hellebores continued to flower steadily and looked pretty next to silver-grey lambs' ears.


I made a couple more Jan Eaton squares.

 The bright colours of spring begin to show! Left is Cercis Forest Pansy and right is rhododendron Mrs GW Leak.

 And I had more tulips. These frilly ones are just amazing! Even more amazing to me was the way the petals age, becoming more beautiful and antique looking as they dry. Next year I really need to plant all the tulips.

 I tried my hand at yarn dyeing early in the month. It's so much fun and I'm quite happy with the results given that I used food colouring! And just a cheap supermarket packet at that. I really can't wait to try some different colour combinations and techniques now, and hand dyed yarn knits up into really fun socks!

 Peony season began this month! On the left is a Pink Hawaiian Sunset variety. Of my nine or so peony plants, only 4 actually flowered this season. Most of them were transplanted the winter before last, so it would seem that they are taking their time to get established.

On the right is a little posy of tulips, clematis and snowball viburnum. The clematis was looking great and covered with flowers bursting open. Then it suddenly wilted. I read about clematis wilt, which can suddenly afflict a healthy plant (usually when a young plant puts on a big growth spurt, and it grows too big for the root system to send nutrients to). The advice was to cut the plant back to the ground so it can grow back. I cut it back and there is absolutely no sign of anything growing back... boo. RIP my fancy clematis.


This month went fast as I spent the bulk of my spare time working on reseeding the back lawn. Not a fun job, or easy, or quick, but I deemed it necessary. At least I had all the spring pretties to look at!

I'll be back soon with November's update.

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