Lifting the Dahlias. Hailing from Mexico and Guatemala originally they don't like Britain's cold and damp winters. Some gardeners in southern England do leave them in the ground covered with a thick mulch. Traditionally they are lifted and stored indoors over winter. 

 In both cases the stems are cut to a few inches above the tubers. If lifted the earth should be removed as much as possible. Some gardeners wash the earth off, some don't. Some leave them upside down for a few days to drain excess water from stems, some don't. Some store them in dry compost over the winter months, some wrap them in newspaper, some simply leave them in boxes or crates (as here).

 The main consideration is to store them indoors in a space with which is dry, not heated but where they will not freeze.  If they get too dry they shrivel, too damp they rot, too cold they die. As long as they make it through to spring they can be replanted for next year's display.

 

 Last mow of the year at the music school. Traditionally early to mid-November is the period for the final cut. After that growth is minimal until spring.    

 The old adage is that if your boots get wet walking across the grass then it's too wet to cut. Today was a misty morning i.e. damp. Cloudy sun and a light breeze dried out the lawn sufficiently by lunchtime to go for it. My boots were moistened by the end but not saturated.

 There are several good reasons for not cutting grass when it's wet. The blades rip rather than cut which also tugs at the roots. The blades get blunted quicker by wet grass. If the going is too soft the weight of the mower may leave unsightly indentations. Anyway a nice trim was achieved after the lawnmower posed for this photo opportunity. 

 Mowing the lawn was a favourite activity when I was a kid. As well as our own garden I would trundle the lawnmower across town to cut the grass for my gran. The child is father to the man? 

 

 I have been travelling back and forth between London and Hitchin a good deal in recent years. The train journey through the Hertfordshire countryside is (literally) a window on the seasons as they change.  

 Hitchin station is located in a deep cutting through chalk; amazing to think it was excavated with pick and shovel. The trees that colonise the banks above have morphed through their autumnal hues. Bare branches are stark against the skyline as the last leaves fall. 

The 'fall' has been taking it's time this year, long and colourful.

 

 The Mahonia x media cultivars have M. japonica and M. lomariifolia as their antecedents and possibly others such as M. bealei. This mixed gene pool has nonetheless hybridised various garden plants that look very similar e.g. 'Winter Sunshine' and 'Charity'.

 For the gardener they have the prized quality of coming into flower in late autumn/early winter when other flowers have faded. On warmer days they attract bees from their slumbers.

 NB the genus Mahonia is now considered to be part of the Berberis genus. For example M. x media is now B. x hortensis. 

 

Some pollinators from the days of summer... Brimstone on Bramble.

European Hornet on Sea Holly.

Bumblebee on Teasel.

Hoverfly on Wild Chicory.

 Thinking back to Midsummer's Day. An evening walk along a mile or two of the Icknield Way, that ancient track across the chalk of England. Considered to be part of a longer 'ridgeway' connecting Lyme Regis and Hunstanton. Probably one should speak of ridgeways plural rather than one definitive route. It passes near my home town of Hitchin where the Pegsdon Hills and Knocking Hoe merge with the flatter expanse of East Anglia. Hereabouts the Icknield Way is a track.

 A month or so later I walked a rather different stretch that cuts through Letchworth. Here it is a road (which passes by my secondary school as it happens). The Way is not simply an historic footpath. In places it still functions as a highway in general use. Heading East from Letchworth it is the route of the A505 between Baldock and Royston. The Romans straightened this section; they were quite happy to co-opt the tracks of the Ancient Britons and we continue to do so.

 We are deep enough into the year to reflect on the year that has passed. We had a proper cold winter after Christmas. Night after night of sub-zero temperatures and days on end barely above freezing. Which would have been normal a few decades ago but we have grown accustomed to warmer winters.

 The dry spring that followed became a fully fledged drought during the summer months. Cold in winter, hot in summer is fine by me but it was pretty parched out there. There was a decent drop of rain in early September but we had quite a dry autumn as well.

 The past few days there has been a tangible sense of transition from late autumn into early winter so the wheel turns...  

 

 Here is a tough/delicate beauty: Autumn Crocus (Crocus speciosus). The advice from Shipton Bulbs is to grow in grass that will not be mown. I planted a handful in just such a spot; I will plant some more next year seeing how lovely they are at a time when not much else is in flower.

 Said to have bluish flowers but these are on the violet spectrum to my eye. Strongly resembles the paler forms of Crocus tommasinianus which flowers in very early spring. They are near neighbours in their natural habitat which might explain their similarity?

C. speciosus hails from Crimea/Iran/Turkey and C. tommasinianus is native to Hungary/Bulgaria. 

Postscript 26/10/25 Looking again at these Crocuses on a dull, cloudy day they do indeed have a pronounced blue tint. I notice this with some other 'blue' flowers; in strong sunlight they are of a violet hue. Classic example: Bluebells can appear deep blue or violet depending on the play of light.

 Some more propagation by division. Pretty basic- I stuck a fork into a patch of Trachystemon orientalis and levered out a section of rhizome to replant elsewhere.

 Sometimes called Oriental Borage or Early Flowering Borage, it's tough as old boots. The flowers resemble those of the annual Borage though it's a different species albeit of the Boraginaceae. Large coarse leaves last through summer. 

 Use as ground cover in dry shade. Invasive or vigorous depending how you look at it; few other plants will flourish in deep, dry shade so it has its uses.

 

 I cut back an unruly Hop (Humulus lupulus) in a neighbour's garden. Hops are vigorous climbers and scramblers in their natural habitats of woodland, hedgerow and scrubby open ground. Their climbing habit is used to good effect in row after row of hop poles in the hop fields of England.

 H. lupulus is dioecious i.e. bears 'male' and 'female' flowers on different plants. The female catkins are the ones used for brewing. Decorative in a dangly sort of way; I saved a stem to hang from the mantlepiece.

 

 Bistorta affinis is a mat forming perennial from the Himalayas, very robust and spreads vigorously. I'm sure it will tolerate some rudimentary propagation by division.

 I got a serrated knife then cut off sections of mat where it is spreading from a border onto paving stones. I placed them in another bed, pressed them into loose soil and watered them in.

 Bistorta affinis was previously known as Persicaria affinis and before that Polygonum affine; part of the Knotweed family of plants by any name.

 

 "Right plant, right place" is a wise gardening adage. Japanese Anemones can be a good choice for a dry, semi-shady spot. However they can be a bit too right and spread considerably by rooty rhizomes. In this case a well established stand was spreading from a border into an adjoining shingle path.

 I dug up them out of the shingle to replant in another border with similar conditions. Actually this propagation by division is recommended as a spring thing but needs must. They may or may not flourish; hopefully they will be the right plant for that place. 

 

 A simple way to gather seed. I leave Eyrngium to self-seed after flowering but I eventually get round to cutting down the dried out stems. I snip off the seed heads and leave them in a bucket for a few weeks. A decent amount of seed collects at the bottom.

 

 Autumn wears a coat of many colours. The fiery hues of Virginia Creeper topped by a white froth of late flowering Russian Vine. Evergreen Holly and Ivy in the background. Bright orange berries on the Holly.

Fascinating fungus.

 

 Autumn leaves. A mighty wind gave them a good shake down on Saturday but many trees are still green or only just starting to turn. I thought the spring/summer drought would result in a premature fall but the rain we had in early September revived wilting boughs. Another dry spell has followed so hard to predict how it goes from here. 

 The delivery from Shipton Bulbs also included 5 Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum multiflorum) in the form of knobbly rooty rhizomes with a claw-like tip.

 Delivery from Shipton Bulbs last week: 100 Ramsons aka Wild Garlic (Allium ursinum), 100 spring flowering Crocus (C. tommasinianus), 50 autumn flowering Crocus (C. siebeiri), 5 Stinking Iris (Iris foetidissima) and 5 Dame's Violet (Hesperis matronalis). September has flown by. I've been planning on planting a good many bulbs but I've barely got started!

Autumn, raking sun and long shadows.

 

Late afternoon, late September.

 The Red Admiral can be spotted well into autumn on warm, sunny days. I notice they seem to favour the leaves of Fig trees when available as a platform to bask on.

 

 The well-tempered compost heap. Some greens, some browns, some vegetable peelings and a pitchfork to turn it over.

 

As autumn sets in the bees are seeking out the last flowers of summer.

 Now the rains have arrived some perennials that were wilting are having a late flush of flowers like these Veronica spicata. A boon for the bees still on the wing.

 

Autumn is here.

I can see a rainbow.

Blue remembered hills.

 

 Free plants. Half a dozen Mulleins (Verbascum thapsus) are growing in this gravelled area courtesy of self-seeding. Obligingly several more have propagated themselves into the pots nearby. Fifty quid if you went out and bought them!

 

Entering the season of the autumn tidy-up.

 

One of Jif's beautiful borders at the music school. 

 I came across two of my beekeeping friends staring intently at a dense patch of Ivy along an old brick wall not far from their collection of hives. As noted in my previous entry Ivy has flowered very early this year and may finish early. Ivy is the last big hit of nectar and pollen for honey bees so that would have consequences. 

 Moreover they observed they were seeing wasps on the flowers but no honey bees. They speculated the flowers may be of less interest to the bees for some reason e.g. less pollen and nectar as a result of the drought. If so that would be double trouble.  

 Common Ivy (Hedera helix) is common indeed and has flowered very early. I saw it in flower in London in mid-August and not long after in Hertfordshire. This is undoubtably a response to the prolonged drought and heatwaves; many plants have flowered earlier and for briefer periods this year.

 Typically Ivy is in flower September/October/November feeding various pollinators well into autumn including honey bees. Ivy honey is known for its dark colour and deep flavour. My bee keeping friends are worried the Ivy season will be cut short and with it the honey.

 Gone but not forgotten. The triennial Giant Echium I grew in my front garden five years ago died after flowering in its third year. It shed thousands of seeds which have been germinating in the vicinity. A handsome specimen bloomed in my neighbour's front garden this year. [see entry dated 17th. May]

 More are on the way. The one by my gate I should be able to tease out of the mound of loose soil it has rooted in and transfer to the adjacent border. The blue flowered Echium pininana is becoming quite common around London but these will be the red flowered Echium wilpretii which is rarely seen. 

 That is assuming they make it through the winter. The former has become increasingly frost tolerant as it naturalises but E. wildpretii is probably closer to its forebears on the Canary Islands where they both hail from. 

 Late August is the traditional time for shearing Lavender, in this case Lavendula angustifolia 'Munstead'. The method is common to all Lavenders: trim the stems taking care to go no more than an inch into the new foliage and not into the woody sections of stem. Lavenders grow best from the green and do not recover well from a hard prune.

 The number of plants for pollinators dwindles by late summer. Even more so this year with the heatwaves and drought. Plants have flowered earlier and for shorter periods. So the various Sedums grown in gardens are especially valuable with their drought tolerance and autumn flowering.

 

 I went to fill up a watering can and found this frog stranded by the reduced water level after weeks with no rain. I gathered it up in a bucket and deposited it in the undergrowth next to a nearby pond.