That’s it! All over for another year. I gathered together all the blooms left in the garden for a warm autumn flower parade on the lean-to windowsills. A party of living fireworks – reds, yellows, golds, apricots and deep purples, all in one place for a final floral flourish. A fruit punch of colour and shape, dahlias, scabious, chrysanthemums and hydrangeas with saved and dried petals from last springs tulips filling glass jars and a few sprigs of millet, their seeds spilling out all over the floor and beyond.
Now I’ll be spending my time outdoors nursing the soil and encouraging bare root roses and irises to take to their new planting positions. Filling more and more pots with bulbs, finding new ways to keep the squirrels out and re-purposing glass jars into lanterns to light up the greenhouse on dark winter afternoons.
We do have some roses that never quit blooming but are yet to master having a full autumn and winter garden, with flowers and foliage at the ready in all seasons. I hope to get some winter blossoming trees and shrubs in the ground in time and the wishlist (always growing) includes witch hazel, a scented viburnum wafting at a gate entrance, paths lined with hardy herbs for pinching between thumb and forefinger, an autumn fruiting strawberry tree, more winter honeysuckle and a clematis ‘Winter Beauty’ rambling through the hedges we planted this spring (once they get high and strong enough to support it).
It will all be about seed heads and dried stems from here on out. Do you have favourite scented plants for when everything else has faded and gone to sleep?
