Summer moving into Autumn

The Summer's been a good one.  We've had a nice mix of warm days, hot days, extremely hot days (too hot to do anything days) and wet and windy days (which have been good for the garden and for my horse's paddock).  In all, I think the Summer's been lovely ... and now we're moving into one of my favourite times of the year, Autumn.

I took some photos of the garden over the Summer months and was surprised to see that the vast majority of flowers that bloom in my borders are of the pink variety ... perhaps something needs to be done about that ... mix it up a little for next year.

These shrubs seem to grow like wildfire.  There's a mixture of different ones here (many of which I have no idea of their names), with a pink rose and pink clematis too - the common one that spreads and spreads and clings to everything.  The pink and white shrub at the far end of this photo is one of my favourites as the flowers are fuzzy in appearance and remind me of  little dabs of powdered paint on blotting paper.  Unfortunately they don't have a scent, much like the pink rose next to it.

Here's another pink corner!  The hydrangea blooms pink because our soil has limestone in it.  We inherited this one, but I prefer the blue flowered ones really.  I see you can add sulphur or peat moss to the soil to lower the pH in order to get turn the flowers blue - perhaps I could try that.  The pink rose bush has a beautiful, delicate scent and was a gift from my in-laws for a wedding anniversary a couple of years back.  I do love the stone squirrel ornament.  He's moved with us over the years and is happy among the pink plants!  Sad to see he's lost an ear along the way though, and I have a feeling he's lost an eye too!

You see what I mean ... all pink!  Pink is gorgeous of course, I'm not grumbling, just didn't realise until I saw the photos!  This fabulous wooden tub of lavender, fuchsia and petunias was another wedding anniversary gift from my in-laws, for this year and the rustic metal mirror a present from my sister-in-law for my birthday.  It makes a pretty corner to this flower bed.

We have several wooden benches around the garden, I try and hide them between trees as little hideaways to sit and while the time away.  I moved this bench from another location as this spot used to be our vegetable plot and gets the majority of the sun.  This year we decided to let the plot turn wild and the abundance of red poppies was fabulous.

During the warmer evenings Paul and I would grab a bottle of beer each and head off to walk Poppy along the marshes.  I've always had a love of grasses and there's several different, very hardy types by the river bank.  We'd sit on the stones and enjoy the peace of the water as the sun went down...

and we'd witness picturesque scenes like this.

The fields close to home are often used to grow wheat, sugar beet or potatoes so it was a surprise to discover these cheerful sunflowers when they burst open.  With the sun setting behind during an early evening walk it was a tiny reminder that Summer is coming to an end.  Driving home from jujitsu with Ben last night in the dark at 8 pm was a more stark  reminder!

And this little fella, found ambling across the park two days ago, will, I'd imagine, have hibernation on his mind.