Peter Truman Photography

It's now early October in the garden and the weather has started to deteriorate once again, the nights drawing in, a chilly feel is in the air, leaves are reddening and dropping from the trees, and in-doors we've had to light the fire a couple of times already. The weather forecast is hinting at frost. Autumn is here. The borders are past their flowering best and seed heads are becoming the feature to look for.

A little research suggests that this wonderful Clematis cultivar was introduced way back in 1897 by Jean-Jacques Moser in his nursery in Versailles. I'm not sure where the "Nelly" came from, although I'm sure a little further diligence in my research will find out (anyone care to point me in the right direction?), but whatever the inspiration for the name he produced one of the most popular and attractive Clematis varieties. It's a one we have a couple of in the garden where they thrive to produce two shows of large flowers every year. It's a rewarding plant that produces lots of large pink flowers with a darker stripe down each sepal, grows fantastically over an arch or similar, and does better in partial shade otherwise the flowers fade to grey or white rather too quickly. That old maxim "feet in the shade, heads in the sun" should be partially ignored for the "Nelly Moser"; feet in the shade certainly, but head in partial shade is best.

The garden was a mess and we were still pondering and waiting for building work (which didn't actually get done until a couple of years later, but that's another story). The weeds were doing well in the garden and the brambles in particular. A bunch of flowers from the local supermarket to cheer the place up and sat down one evening to stare at the form of the flowers using a simple table lamp to light them up. After picking each one from the vase and twiddling them about to look from every conceivable angle, I separated this one from the bunch and went to work.

I'm a huge fan of the prairie or drift style planting that Piet Oudolf pioneered and the vistas to be seen walking round gardens he has designed are mesmerising. None more so than the Floral Labyrinth garden at Trentham Gardens (see my article) where I spent a long time wandering round and taking up rather too much time so that the other gardens were a little rushed by comparison. The best way to enjoy this garden is to slowly walk round the perimeter and then walk in through the many pathways that run through this garden. However, what you will almost certainly find is that patience is exhausted before you get all the way round and want to dive straight in. My walk round the outside was done in several sections. But then follow the paths to experience the different drifts of plants, the colours, textures and forms. Its a very sensual garden and one to take in slowly and enjoy.

June 14th 2009, a beautiful sunny evening. I sat in the garden looking, thinking about nothing in particular but fully aware of the wonderful evening light that was starting to make the plants in the border glow. Time to pick up the camera and start looking amongst the plants in the border - of which there are many different types. As I often do I edged along with the long macro lens, looking through the viewfinder rather than just hoping my eyes would pick something up. With the sun on them the gently hanging blue bells looked a real treat and I spent some time gazing at them lit up by the warm light. I took several pictures to get a group of the bells in the picture, but then I saw the shadow of the stamen on the petal.

In early summer 2009 we had a hot spell, really hot for the UK, but of course this did not last very long and the British summer has once again been sunshine and showers, although at times these showers have not had much sunshine or even dry between them. For plants of course, such a combination is wonderful and we have seen our border here at home thrive. We have also been through a significant building project over the last 18 months and the garden has been carnage, so as it returns to something like a garden we have indulged in many new plants.

There are a few plants that have survived the turmoil and just adjacent to the bay window is a Lavatera Barnsley that has been flowering for months at a time for the last several years. I can see the flowers from my desk adjacent to the window and have spent many happy hours watching bees and other insects around it. We've also had a blackbird nesting in the rose bush that grows above it, so that's been fascinating to watch too. Now the birds have flown, but the Lavatera flowers on. It's one of those that have both pink and white flowers on the same plant and yes we should prune it but it does so well without any attention.

When the sun drops in the evening it makes the flowers glow. When its been raining and the sun drops the flowers glow and sparkle at the same time.

Renishaw Hall held an event in February 2009 called a "Fanfare for Spring". Thei r gardens had been closed to the public from October 2008 and were not due to open again until April. The event was to herald and see in spring and was a one day event to show the gardens waking up from their long rest.

Some blogs have a section entitled "Photograph of the week" in which a new photograph is displayed weekly, monthly or in whatever period the blogger wants. I would place money, were I a gambling sort (which I'm not) that these are not updated every month or week or whatever. After a fit of enthusiasm the frequency of posting tends to slow to a crawl. There's also the photo-a-day projects or similar, some of which become very stale quickly and to fill the slot just about any image goes, even if it is really a complete waste of bits and bytes storing and reproducing it.

I was once stopped by a man in London begging for money. Well he actually asked very nicely and said to me he would be honest and that he wanted the money to buy some alcohol. He wasn't going to use it, should I hand any over, for a cup of tea or sandwich, just a drink. So I capitulated and gave him enough for a (very) cheap bottle of wine, probably more fool me but I admired his honesty.