October Garden Notes from the Chilterns
Pheasants and nut gathering time according to our previously cited poet Sara Coleridge - walnuts seem to have done very well this year but despite a bumper crop of chestnuts in the lanes, they tend to be rather small with three nuts to the case which might well be due to the lack of sufficient rain in our over-dry summer. As for you pheasants, Izzy recommends that you keep your heads down and avoid any low flying unless you want to become the principal ingredient in somebody's up coming Sunday roast dinner. October was favoured by artists such as Monet, Van Gogh, Courbet and many others who loved portraying autumn with its rich reds and golds in their impressionistic manner.
Here we are in October then with the autumn equinox behind us and a sun racing away southwards enticing if not dragging us into another winter like the pied piper (but not yet though!). Even the big ship has sailed away on the illey alley oh on the last day of September on its last doom laden journey out into the Irish sea and the Atlantic beyond never to be seen again. October is probably going to be the start of your big tidying up projects with pots, beds, lawns, shrubs and trees all needing a good seeing to so a steady and planned crop of autumnal jobs should now be tackled in the garden.
Even though you may by now have swopped your lightweight summer duvet for your heavyweight winter version, temperatures are still holding up here in the Chilterns, so much so that grass is not only growing strongly, but new seed will continue to germinate whilst temperatures remain above 10°C, although bear in mind that this relates to soil temperature and not the ambient air temperature, so don't put the grass cutters out to grass yet whether they be hand pushed, battery powered, petrol driven or robotic they may well be needed for some time yet.
Some pond maintenance is likely to be needed now and if in a fit of enthusiasm some time ago you dug out and created your dream water feature, filling it with blue and yellow flag irises, pickerelweed and one or several water lily plants, you might be having some second thoughts if not regrets.
Without regular cutting back and physically pulling out with great effort, the vigorous spread of these plants, the surface of your pond will be totally covered with rampaging leaves, stems and dying back flowering heads. Attractive as they are, these plants are tough and and highly productive if the conditions suit them and they take some shifting once established, as Izzy's dad can testify. Cut back hard and pull out unwanted areas of plants that have spread too far, although wait until spring to pull out water lilies when you can then divide them and replant rhizome portions in baskets with new aquatic medium topped with a good handful of gravel to keep it in place. Pond life needs light and space so a good clear out will just what the newts, beetles, fresh water snails and all the other creatures making up the cast need for a healthy and reproductive life.
P.S. For those living south of Crewe, the 'illy alley oh' however you choose to spell it, refers to the Manchester Ship Canal in the well known traditional children's nursery rhyme
