late summer in the garden and the hedgerows
and music by Talos
When I was going back through my photos for August to build this album, I thought: why aren’t there many pictures. Did I just give up noticing and documenting? Then I remembered that the spring and summer have been rainy and very windy and very overcast and even very stormy (a particularly rough few days, courtesy of Hurricane Ernesto that was storm Ernesto for us in Ireland, caused a lot of damage, even sending the clematis crashing down from the lofty heights it had spent all spring and summer climbing the chimney breast to reach), and while there have been days here and there of glorious sun and blue skies, it hasn’t been nearly consistent enough for the flowers to benefit from the amount of light and sun and warmth that they need, and so they struggled to reach their full potential. The flowers, they’re just like me! Perhaps it’s just for this season, perhaps the conditions will be better for them next growing season, or perhaps they will now forever struggle to thrive in the extreme and bizarre weather changes they’re now having to cope with, and everything about how and when and where they do best will have to be rethought. The flowers, they’re just like me!
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This album, so, includes a bit of a hodgepodge of some pictures from July and August, and brings us to early September, which I’ve already found to be a much more exciting time in the garden this year. September and the slide into autumn is one of my favourite times in nature, in the air the clouds the sun and the moon, in the atmosphere, in general, but this year in particular, when usually I’m waiting for the leaves to start to turn and autumn to unequivocally announce its arrival, I found a lot of joy from the last hurrah that so many of the summer flowers in the garden managed to achieve. While a lot of this was thanks to more sunny, warm days in early September, plus deadheading deadheading deadheading, some of it was also because I sowed very late - I sowed nothing in late winter/spring; I sowed in June. I risked things not managing to flower at all, but with that risk, came the chance that some would flower into September, even October, providing some last little pops of excitement and joy as a goodbye to summer colour, as the mallow and calendula in particular have, indeed, happily done.
Some plants, such as scabious and verbena, have struggled with mildew and so I performed rescue operations - the results of which remain to be seen in the case of the verbena, but were a great success in the case of the scabious who bounced back in no time at all from being treated and cut right back. He has put on lots of foliage, and I even see some buds forming, perhaps ready to go for one last bloom to say thank you for helping me! if he gets enough sun over the next while. Many days on the weather app there was a blight warning, and one way this manifested in the garden was in really messed up hydrangea leaves - all brown spots and just looking quite sorry for itself.
Some seeds (off the top of my head: mallow, calendula, buckwheat, some cosmos) successfully germinated and eventually bloomed (although many took over two months to start to grow strong enough to form sturdy stems and promising buds - this was for seeds that it is advised usually take a few weeks when in optimal conditions); others (fever few, cornflowers, other wildflowers I can’t think of as I write) have either put on only green growth or have simply just not shown their faces and so I can only assume have rotted, blown away, been eaten, were incorrectly sown, couldn’t battle the roots of weeds and grasses etc. etc. A nepeta that had been doing really well and that the bees were obsessed with had to be dug up as, one morning, it was discovered flattened, snapped and squashed, completely destroyed by, I imagine, a cat gone out of its mind with excitement and mania (nepeta = catmint). Some cuttings didn’t take and, instead, sadly, rotted; some grew vigorous and generous roots ready to be potted on and planted out after the winter. Such is life, such is the garden.
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My customary music sharing for today is Talos -- a favourite Irish musician. He sadly passed away during the summer. I wanted to include some songs in this music section that I always listen to when I want to be peaceful, emotional, energised, hopeful, soothed, lulled to sleep. When I want to feel something strongly.
I remember first getting into Talos because the music reminded me of Icelandic music I was into, only to later learn that he was very influenced by Icelandic music, and found and made a creative home in Iceland. I think that is evident in the ethereal, meditative, transportative music I’m sharing here. His three albums are all worth spending some time melting into.
Crows ft. Lisa Hannigan
I love this so much – what amazing plants and flowers and I love all the attention they receive from you! I loved this in particular – "He has put on lots of foliage, and I even see some buds forming, perhaps ready to go for one last bloom to say thank you for helping me!" 🌸❤️