Autumn notes 2023
September to November is a particularly busy time in the plant nursery as the race to complete propagation and potting on tasks becomes urgent – once the weather turns colder young plants will struggle to survive. It’s also a time for tidying up polytunnel and glasshouse, putting the irrigation gear away for the winter, and beginning to plan next year’s sales effort.
Meanwhile, we’ve completed our autumn sowing of sweet peas, and re-filled our seed trays with some new varieties of stalwarts – lots of rudbeckias and echinaceas and others. The unusually mild weather has also caused plenty of unseasonal flowering in our potted on stock, including delphiniums, salvias and sidalcea – it’s nice to have the extra colour around at this time of year. The last of the dahlias and anemones still light up the borders whilst much of the beech has already turned its autumnal brown. The fasicularia is putting on a show and there’s even the occasional rose bloom bravely hanging on…
Fungi are plentiful too…
Wildlife activity changes as well. The swallows are long gone and the smaller birds are much easier to spot as the leaves disappear from deciduous trees and seed heads become a more important food source. The heavy rains and raised water table have also had an impact as more creatures are seen on the higher ground.
And here’s a video of two young foxes, caught playing together and stealing the crab apple fruit shortly before our two springer spaniels went for their morning stroll…
