September in the garden

September has turned out to be quite cheerful in my little garden. 

At the end of August I had a big tidy up, and bought a load of autumn bedding plants. This isn't something I'd usually do, but at that point we were still planning to put the house on the market in September (needless to say, that overambitious plan has been well and truly abandoned), and I wanted to get something finished. So I tidied everything up, put woodchip over all the bare soil, went to the tip several times, and planted up all my containers with cheerful flowers.  

I've been delighted with the results. It turns out the garden is now the most relaxing place at home, because nothing needs doing. I don't think I've ever had that experience with a garden before. I've had my breakfast out there most days in September, which has made me remember just how cheerful this little city garden is. 

The light is lovely out there in the mornings at this time of year. Families walk past on their way to school, not realising I'm sat there behind a fence, and I hear snippets of their conversations about the day ahead. There are a surprising number of birds, and the lavender is full of bees. 

At the weekends I've taken to eating my lunch out there too, and lingering for a while with a book. 

(Yes, I had pancakes for lunch, and yes, that is a potato growing in amongst the violas).

​The front part of the garden still looks a bit uninspiring, but at least it's now tidy, and the raspberries which overhang the pavement have been livening up my breakfast for the past few weeks. 

I can even walk from one end of the garden to the other without tripping over old plant pots, prunings, and piles of sticks. 

So I'm feeling quite affectionate towards this little garden right now. I don't know how long that'll last. Right now we're past the summer months where everything grows faster than I can cut it done, and I know that once we get to February it will be entirely full of sticks and I will be all despondent again. 

But who knows? Now I've realised the joy of having a nicely kept garden, I might well keep on top of it. The advantage of a small garden, of course, is that it doesn't take too much maintenance. I can see an afternoon of spring bulb planting in the near future, especially as we now won't be selling the house until well after Christmas (well after Christmas 2017 the rate we're going...). 

​I just hope the weather stays nice enough to have a few more weeks of garden breakfasts...