Hello friends and welcome back to my blog.

It’s been too long since my last post here - more than a year. I’ve promised myself I’m going to put more time into my website (and a little less time into social media) so you should hopefully see more posts in the coming weeks and months.

I thought I’d start with a gentle ramble around the garden…

A couple of weeks ago I took a walk around our recently-rained-upon garden with my camera to capture the colours and textures, the flowers, fruits, seedlings and seedheads of autumn.

A sunflower seed head that is ripening and has gone brown in colour — Seed head of ‘Hopi black dye’ sunflower

The small garden bed next to our kitchen greenhouse is full of ripening seedheads of ‘Hopi black dye’ sunflower, all still on their tall, leaning stalks. I grew these to use for the natural black-purple dye their seeds produce. So far the birds don’t seem to have touched them, but I don’t mind if they do - these giants made multiple flower heads this summer, producing more seeds than I need.

I was surprised to get as many good-sized pears on our tree as we did this year after the Summer of Very Little Rain. I’m keeping a close eye on a bowlful of them in my kitchen now, waiting for signs of ripening. No idea what type of pear it is, but I think Conference or Concorde (?)

How could I not photograph these Echinacea, with their drooping pink petals and red cones… plus a spiderweb! I leave the cones in the garden and watch goldfinches pick out the seeds through the winter.

Our garden really is full of seed heads right now, but a few things are still in flower, like Allium tuberosum (garlic chives), Anemone hupensis, Rudbeckia triloba and strawflowers. I adore Rudbeckia (brown-eyed Susan) for its yellow brightness that lasts into late fall. It’s also something I started drying more of this year. Until the hard frosts arrive, I’m still harvesting a few jewel-like strawflowers (Xerchrysum bracteatum). They’ve slowed their production with the shortening days but will keep on going into December if they can. They were closed up tight against the rain when I went out with the camera.

And then there are my usual fall favourites - yellow birch leaves, home-grown pumpkins (this one is Bush Baby), dew bejewelled spider webs, and so many seed heads. This year I grew Allium sphaerocephalon (round-headed garlic) and left most of the flowers to dry in place (I dried some in my workshop too). They all ended up leaning slightly, giving their seed heads the most amazing shapes.

A small, blue-grey coloured pumpkin sits on a pile of branches — Winter squash ‘Bush baby’

A photo of a flower garden with some flowers and flower seed heads, and an apple tree in the back ground. — The flower garden (with tall stems of dried *Allium sphaerocephalon*) by our Bramley apple tree

On Sunday I cleared out our kitchen greenhouse, leaving only the chilli plants - Hungarian black - which have ripened to a pretty red. We plan to dry them for chilli flakes. This greenhouse is in nearly full shade over the winter so I don’t grow anything here in the cold months. On the other hand, it’s a great place to keep dormant perennials in pots out of the winter rain. I do love to see a full greenhouse, but it’s also refreshing to give it a good clean, ready for next year’s abundance.

While most of the garden is full of seed heads, the soil is also full of self-sown seedlings. Nigella in particular is rampant and it seems like seeds are germinating in every flower bed. Foxglove, cerinthe and forget-me-not seedlings are carpeting the flowerbeds, and so is another interesting plant - Xeranthemum cylindraceum, a type of small, papery everlasting flower. I had several seedlings survive last winter to grow into large, beautiful, productive plants this spring and this year’s seeds are now growing on. I’ve also started some seeds of its relative X. annuum - which has larger flowers - to overwinter too. Both plants grow well in poor, dry soil so they’re winners for me.

*Xeranthemum cylindraceum* (with broad leaves) and Nigella seedlings (with divided leaves)

That’s all for today - I hope you enjoyed this little catch-up and autumn tour of the garden. I’ll be sharing some photos of my exhibit at Strawberry Hill House in September. Take care and have a lovely week x

Welcome back and welcoming autumn

Strawberry Hill House Flower Festival

Something interesting about strawflowers