The Last of the Summer

Earlier this year I decided to make some changes in my garden, out came a huge clump of bamboo which was spreading everywhere. If you ever buy a bamboo plant and are told it is a non spreading variety, treat the information, with a pinch of salt! Bamboo likes to travel.

Down came an enormous Silver Birch which was shading a large part of the garden and taking all the moisture from the soil. Now I had sunshine and an empty flower bed to plant.

I had visions of a haze of Verbena Bonariensis floating above the lower planting, the edge of the bed grounded by a row of Box balls.

In went a small Olive tree that had been in a pot for years, white Scabious, blue and white Lupins and Lavender were planted along with annual Nicotiana Sylvestris to fill the gaps whilst the perennials grew.
Now at the end of September a lot of the flowers are over, but the Nicotiana plants have been stars, flowering their heads off.

And there is the Verbena hovering above the rest of the planting, including the weeds which are growing like mad!

Just behind this new flowerbed I have a good crop of apples on my row of fruit trees, and the hot early summer has done wonders for the grapevine. I have never seen so many grapes.

No good for eating, but the birds will love them, they need to fill up now it will be winter soon.