Friday 21 September 2012

A Year in the Life of a Lady Gardener - September Hiatus


 . . . . . . .perhaps the chiefest attraction of a garden is that occupation can always be found there. No idle people are happy, but with mind and fingers busy cares are soonest forgotten.

Alicia Amherst, 1902

September is  a quiet month in my gardening year. After the frantic efforts of spring, the high maintenance work of summer, the delicious pleasures of a hot August spent entertaining in the garden - ok, rewind that last bit and amend to read: the misery of staring out at a chilly, rain sodden mess from inside the safety of my home - comes September; often drier than the whole of an English summer, this month rewards us with the fruits of nature's labour and our's too; man and beast and birds all profit from the bounty before the onset of winter. 


There is still plenty of colour in the garden. In September late-flowering clematis come into their own, tumbling over stonework and climbing high into trees left standing particularly for this purpose.





Shrubs like fuchsias and the many varieties of smoke bush (cotinus)  are at their best now.

I look about me in the garden and see the first signs of decay, leaves on flowers and trees alike are beginning to assume their autumn plumage. Still, the secateurs will have to stay in my pocket for a while longer, and the dividing fork and spade remain hanging on their hooks on the wall in the garage. For now, at least, I must curb my impatience to put the garden to bed, it is too early to snip and prune and tidy up. Once the lavender flowers have been cut back, the rose bushes dead headed for yet another flush of buds opening to the last warming rays of autumn sun, overlooked stems of hosta flowers have finally been removed, I have little to do except study each bed carefully and make decisions about future layout and planting. Clumps of overgrown herbaceous perennials are earmarked for digging up and dividing; plants that have not earned their keep so far this year are given a very last chance to make me change my mind about discarding them altogether. 


If  we can do nothing about the flower beds, and little about shrubs, we must turn our attention to trees, fruit trees in particular. We only grow apples and Victoria plums. Gardener has been quite brutal about the plum trees, taking out whole canopies and even Beloved is roped in to chop up branches and help us get them ready for the bonfire or chipper.


Gardener is, of course, busy turning the compost heaps. We operate a three-bin-system. fresh greenery from the garden (avoiding the roots and seeds of all perennials weeds), shredded newspaper and dampened cardboard, small twigs and kitchen refuse are layered alternately, with a juicy layer of grass clippings added once a week during summer to create the necessary heat to cook the whole stew nicely. It takes anything from six months to a year, depending on the frequency of turning, to earn the final reward of black gold, which is then shovelled into huge builders' bags and left in an out-of-the-way corner to await distribution next spring.



Here we have the finished article, ready to be bagged up, barrow load after barrow load of well-rotted compost, crumbly and soft, and absolutely essential to induce our stony soil to produce an abundance of new life next spring. Gardener has two other gardens to look after and he tells each of their owners that nothing compares to the stuff he - and he alone, mind you - manages to coax out of the previous year's leavings at Mrs. Friko's. I am magnanimous enough never to remind him that I taught him everything he knows about compost -  and no, we are not in competition with each other in the matter, Not At All!


43 comments:

  1. Lovely compost...really lovely.
    We composted in Europe and are composting now...but the tropical heat seems to make things go a lot faster!
    Danilo just does not get it...why do all this when things grow anyway...but we have a particularly nasty soil around the house and the compost is vital, so composting it is.

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  2. Hello:
    How precisely and succinctly this recalls our own September days over our twenty-five or so years in Herefordshire when the anxiety to start to put the garden to bed was curbed by the need to relax after the rigours of the spring and summer and to enjoy, as you are so clearly doing, the late summer colour in flower, fruit and leaf.

    Oh yes, the making of the compost....!

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  3. A very enjoyable post. I am trying to curb my own tendencies to tidy prematurely. I have not yet gotten into composting, but your talk of it makes me want to give it a try. You and Gardener make quite a team.

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  4. Beautiful garden.
    Mine a minature of what you have.
    Also, I remind myself
    only 3 years in this cottage today.
    A dream come true.
    Goal
    something that one woman can handle
    with a few hours help a month.
    So far
    I am fine
    but wonder for how long :)

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  5. Ah lovely gold, my Leo avoids it, I try and convince him, don't know why he is appalled by it and says to me "it will never work."

    Try again this year, I will.

    XO
    WWW

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  6. Oh, how gorgeous is your garden, Friko! Great photos too. Those reds! We also have a plum tree, but had absolutely no plums on it this year for the first time ever. We shall also be planting an apple tree before long (our garden is being completely redesigned at the moment). Only today a beautiful new compost bin was erected (note the passive — I didn't do it myself, shame on me) in a corner at the bottom of our plot.

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  7. het is zo wie zo heerlijk om in z,on tuin te werken.

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  8. Your garden looks wonderful. It's been a funny old year for apples. Only two of our trees have produced any - not a bean or a button on the rest of them. We had loads of red currants this year which compensated. Gardener's compost looks fantastic :)

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  9. I do love your garden and your photos of it. Your gardener has done a great job of it, but most of all the compost is so important in a wonderful garden such as yours.

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  10. It's finally cool enough here to work out in the yard again after summer. I'm needing to get my winter garden in. My neighbor Frank of the Bountiful Garden has already planted his.

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  11. ah i think you still have beautiful gardens...we are starting to see the first bit of change in the trees on the mountains....enjoying my drive in the mornings as i watch the subtle changes....

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  12. Envious of your lovely apples...everyone here, including us, have no apples this fall...a late frost in the beginning of the season took care of that. We must look farther for offerings to enjoy. Wishing we had some of your excessive rain a while back...going into winter with such dryness is not good and I would love to have our pond level up much higher before the ice forms. Such is the life of gardeners though...every year has its own challenges and by January we are all thinking about the wondrous accomplishments to come...

    Your Gardener is a gem - you have taught him well:o)

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  13. I am repetitious, but Friko you do so have a gorgeous garden! A delight to photograph too. Sensational pic with the castle in the far background. I hope your picture perfect apples are as sweet and juicy as they look. I make pretty good compost too and isn't it wonderful when it's so good you want to feel, and smell it.

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  14. We do the same and yet your compost is again more like black gold. Maybe I need your gardener? That one long shot of the garden is a treasure. Everything looks just the right size, texture and color. I am envious.

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  15. Friko, when I read these gardening focused posts, I sort of melt.

    I wonder if there is truly a possibility that I might be able to again be in touch with a garden. Where that garden might be. Will my dreams blend well with remaining stamina and imagination. (The appreciation quotient seems assured in these dreams of mine.)

    How your posts and the true reporting of what is involved in a real, true garden, do feed these dreams of mine. Is is this some form of composting!

    xo

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  16. I will NEVER forget your compost bins! If you saw the state of ours, well, I shudder to think. I love the photographs, and particularly the delicious view of with the castle in the back, particularly in comparison with my mind's eye view of what we saw this summer. I would say heaven on earth, but then I've learned from you a bit about what labor it takes to achieve this, so, unless the angels are doing the work . . .

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  17. Your garden is gorgeous. I really need to work at getting some fall colour in mine. I'm ready to take the clippers to all those pink cosmos that seem too giddy for these riper days.
    What wonderful soil you've created in your compost bins. We compost, too. Essential for gardening in the clay soil we have.

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  18. Oh, your beautiful gardens, Friko! And oh, your beautiful compost. I keep threatening to compost and the family look at me as though I were daft (of course, I am)...

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  19. You certainly are a keen gardener Friko. It looks good too. Bagging up your compost and saving it for the next year is a good idea. I wait until just before winter and dig it in, but on thinking about it I like your idea best. I will follow suit from now on - Dave

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  20. Ah, good black compost. Better than gold in your pocket!

    Your serious gardening work impresses me so much. I don't even know enough to be that serious about it. The only thing on my mind this fall is to PLEASE REMEMBER TO DIVIDE THE PEONY! I've been meaning to do it for three years now. I could probably get three plants out of it.

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  21. You garden is simply beautiful! And that compost is fabulous. We are trying to compost in our community garden but I haven't seen anything that looks like your black gold quite yet...

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  22. My guys are coming soon to turn the compost bins. I too have several of them. Although most paper goes into the recycle bin and the county recycles it, we do put the shredded paper in the bins. You do great compost. Dianne

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  23. This post reminded me of “season of mellow fruitfulness”. The flowers are lush and the fruits must be so delicious because of the best fertilizer you made. I do love your garden. You really got a green thumb through such a nice and serious hobby, Friko.

    Yoko

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  24. 'I have little to do except study each bed carefully and make decisions about future layout and planting.'

    Friko, this post is so rich with the kind of wisdom nearly vanished from the manner in which we handle our affairs 'these days.' I couldn't read it without applying lessons of one sort or another to any worthy goal toward which we work. Gardening has always offered itself as both metaphor and teacher. I'm considering printing out your post and placing it somewhere highly visible to bolster me in my impatience and immaturity of soul. (Ignorance?) This line, in particular, was a deep encouragement:

    'It takes anything from six months to a year, depending on the frequency of turning, to earn the final reward'

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  25. Beautiful beautiful gardens. Lovely...and your compost is something to be proud of for sure.
    Hugs
    SUeAnn

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  26. Beautiful compost. I can almost see Monty Don giving it an appreciative sniff. I don't have a garden myself, so I have no problem resisting the urge to tidy up anything!

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  27. Frico, I think my compost is not so good as yours because I haven't patience to wait years it to be ready. The clematis seems the blue wave dropped from tree to the road!

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  28. I have a few September flowers in the back yard, but nothing compared to your spread. Thanks for the pics. of your beautiful grounds. And congrats. for doing all that composting . . . for which the result is its own reward!

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  29. Love the compost, it looks so rich and nutritious - well, that's what it is. A few weeks ago I received 20 cubic yards of compost - I'm getting rid of 1900 sq. feet of lawn and will turn them into flower beds, mostly for native plants and drought tolerant ones. They need to be unattractive to deer as well...
    Autumn is my busiest season in the garden. That's when we plant so that the plants can get established during the winter rain. Planting in spring is less successful here because it needs so much watering over the summer. Sometimes we get a little bit of rain in the summer, but it's just a tiny drop in the big picture. It takes a lot of extra work to have a lush garden here - but that's work I really enjoy.

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  30. This is the first September that I can remember that I have to put at least half my garden to bed. Flowers that usually last till October have lost their blooms and many have lost their leaves. I do not know what happened but I am hearing from other gardeners in the area that it is happening to them also. The good thing is that it now gives me rom to put in a fall garden.

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  31. I'm so happy that you and Gardener are both alive and well and still getting along.

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  32. Lovely as usual. The clematis looks like a type of Aster. Is that true?

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  33. Compost! Not Competition! Thanks for this lovely tour of your realm.

    Aloha from Honolulu,
    Wishing you a sweet week ahead!
    Comfort Spiral
    =^..^=

    > < } } ( ° >

    > < } } (°>

    ><}}(°>

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  34. I am sure I've said this before and not once, but there I go again - your garden is absolutely gorgeous! And that picture with the little door and the bursting daisies (I hope they are that) is a sheer delight.
    Oh, do send some fuchsia charm my way; the drabness of this heartless, brown concrete jungle is too much to live with everyday.

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  35. I lost my last comment mid-construction . . .

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  36. In answer to your question on my blog. These beautiful flowers (Amaryllis) will flower year after year for 10 or more years. You can plant them outdoors then repott them and bring them indoors before the frost, then let them rest for 2 months then water and feed them again and they will bloom for you after Christmas. To throw them away is a waste of a beautiful plant. It takes 5 years for them to start blooming in the first place. I know I have started them from seed.

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  37. Dear Friko, I do so hope that those perennials and shrubs, whose very existence you are debating, will make a final effort to impress you! Peace.

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  38. Hello Friko, if you have no frost in your part of the world then you can leave the Amaryllis outdoors. You can give them compost once or twice a year and they should do well. If you have them indoors then you should give them water soluble 15-30-15 fertilizer. If you are transplanting the Amaryllis, you could give then bone meal, that will offset the shock of transplanting. I hope this helps you with the amaryllis plant.

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    Replies
    1. Oh and soil for the Potts, I use peat moss, this way you don't get any little bugs that like to live in garden soil in your garden.

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  39. Hi Friko - beautiful photos .. and I love the berries and your story telling. So pleased Gardener is obviously feeling much better ... the quiet of the autumnal glow - brilliant photos ..

    Cheers Hilary

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  40. I really loved this post, Friko. Your garden is quite extraordinarily beautiful and its setting is superb. As for the compost - my mother was the best compost maker I know, but even she never managed these quantities. :-)

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  41. My how well you care for your spectacular garden.The gardener is a good addition to get more of the work done. You would have little time to right if you had to just manage that all alone!

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