How did that happen? One minute it was summertime – no rain, high temperatures, struggling plants – and then whoosh! we are entering the 10th month of the year. I don’t dislike the beginning of October – well it is my birthday soon – but that was far more exciting when I was small, now I dislike the fact that the days are shorter. Often the weather can be mild and rather beautiful, trees start their annual ritual of changing colour and the sunsets can be rather magical and there is still work to be done in the garden when we get a dry day.

For now though here are six things in the garden on a Saturday.

OK. Brace yourselves. Now this is where I need some help. Having mentioned previously in posts/comments that my daughter’s roses have been stripped to sticks I discovered that my white climber has suffered the same fate! Well not quite as bad as the upper stems are fine and it is flowering albeit very late.

Filigree lace

Well and truly chomped

and what is that brown blob?

I actually went out to photograph my Clematis ‘Princess Kate’ as it has been missing in action this summer. Finally flowers have arrived, but the back is not as pink as usual. I think that might be because the Jasmine and rose foliage have shaded it out.

Another late flower is this Cornflower which I grew from seed, I say grew, basically I scattered a few seeds into a couple of containers in May and let them get on with it. Although the flowers are small they are a very lovely shade of blue.

Stage 1 – green buds

Stage 3 – turning pink

Stage 4 – almost completely pink

And talking about thugs, you can see from the header photo that the remaining bamboo has gone. There are quite a few bits of dead root which I have tried to pick out – might need to buy a garden sieve – but I’m not sure they will actually regrow. I have found a couple of live bits and dug one out, the other comes from under the enormous boulder so all I can do is keep cutting it to the ground and hope!

New bed with bamboo – June 2016

Shed and Bamboos – 2019

Bamboo cut down – 2022

Bulbs have arrived so planting must begin. I haven’t been quite so extravagant this year as I want to see if any of last year’s bulbs return. A few new varieties so we’ll see how they fare.

As always, if you want a peek over other people’s garden walls then please pop over to our host, the lovely Jon, AKA ‘The Propagator’ where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world. See here for the participant’s guide.

Six on Saturday