Parks & Gardens in London, the UK & abroad
It is the beginning of October in The Fortnight Garden but it is definitely a new season as well. Autumn has arrived and the garden is starting to slowly pack up for the year and retreat into itself for the long winter months. I find it quite sad.
Telegraph Hill Park in Lewisham is in two parts – south and north, or upper and lower – and separated by Kitto Road. My first visit was to the South Park (Upper) last week and today I cross the road to walk in Lower Telegraph Hill Park in Lewisham (North Park).
Well, you have to pay for pleasure and after enjoying the sunshine and bright colours of Northern Spain I have returned to a messy, sombre garden in London. It could be worse – the gardens could be dry and dead! Nevertheless I have six challenges in the City Garden this week.
Aloneness over there.
And here.
I think I am coming to the end of the gardening year in Suffolk – the garden is starting to look as though it wants to rest.
I love wandering in Greenwich Park in the evenings and at the moment the autumn colours are wonderful, although winter seems just round the corner. The ring-necked parakeets and the squirrel are frenetically busy, and very noisy, gathering up the chestnuts.
The front garden is looking just as abundant as the back garden – in the evening light it looked more like high summer than autumn!
There are some late roses – William Shakespeare and Graham Thomas
The bed which was replanted in the spring is working! The Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ are marvellously vibrant – I may plant a few more in the spring – and the Japanese Anemones ‘Honorine Jobert’ are starting to clump in the shade of the hedge.
The sedums are spectacular!
I can’t believe that it is early October and the garden still looks good. I started clearing up in the back garden, cutting down the Japanese Anemones before the seedpods could burst – they are multiplying quite fast enough without seeding as well! I need to thin the clumps but I think I will wait til early spring while the plants are still dormant. The Viburnum berries are abundantly red and the sedums are absolutely stunning. The cool start to the year meant they didn’t romp away and I have compact plants with enormous flower heads.
There, is it definitely winter, with temperatures below freezing and the first snows.
Here, it is suddenly much colder, that wet cold that seeps into your bones, but the leaves are still resolutely clinging to the trees, and there is a last, mad, dash of colour.
We are sharing yellow – over here the quinces are changing colour and over there the leaves have turned.
