September has arrived and the summer is finally making way for the autumn.
Its bee a crazy, wonderful, whirlwind of a summer this year with many lovely visitors, old and new coming in to see us.
The last couple of years have been so challenging with Covid and it has been a summer of celebration that many people are now vaccinated and restrictions are lifted. That being said, my father is extremely vulnerable and we are well-aware that covid hasn’t gone away so we have continued to offer hand-sanitiser in and around the shop and we have kept our perspex screens up around the counter areas so customers and staff are as safe as they can be.
The garden has had lots of dramatic changes this season with trees being propped up in many places and some hard pruning happening with some of the huge, English trees that were creating a canopy of shade in places!
The summer heatwaves have provided a massive amount of sun and plants have enjoyed it for the most part – probably due to us being so close to the water table (being at the bottom of a valley) so we have been lucky to remain green all summer!
The mature azaleas that were planted in around 30 years ago haven’t needed watering for at least the last 20 years – until this summer! Azaleas are shallow rooted trees but ours are so mature they find their own water usually but this year the heat and lack of rain caused a few to start wilting – so we quickly doused them with water. Really goes to show how the climate is changing.
We have found over the last few years that the autumn colour seems to be peeking later and later- sometimes not seeing the full splendour until we closed to the public! So this year we are staying open a couple of weeks longer (until 15th November) to hopefully allow everyone to see the garden in its most amazing autumn colour pallet before we close for the season.
Please check out the pictures below that I captured this morning in the garden –