Misty Morning Magic

It's October and quite often the day starts with a thick layer of mist. The garden turns out, rather surprisingly, to be covered from head to toe in spiders webs. The webs were always there of course, but the mist caught in the webs makes them suddenly so very noticeable, not too mention breathtakingly beautiful.
Everything is shrouded in a layer of silvery, white gauze bedecked with twinkling diamonds.
Where there fairies at work last night?
Leaves shimmering with sprays of droplets.
Autumn colours are glowing more brightly in the misty morning.
Everything is hazy and so very quiet, it's surreal and
it's making your head spin.
And then ............., the sun appears; another glorious golden October day begins.

copyright 2008 Y.E.W. Heuzen

An American divine wrote that October is nature's funeral month and that October is more beautiful than May. Gardeners may well argue about that, but they will agree that the sun of their gardening year is setting in October. It's a time for reflection, for judicial summing up of our successes and failures.
Ministry of Agriculture, Allotment & Gardening Guides, October 1945

At Long Last

She's here. I've been waiting for a whole year but today Tara, 8 weeks old, came at last. It's been a looooooooong pregnancy but very much worth the wait.
Tara is a Kooikerdog, a very old Dutch dog breed. They were painted many a time by the well known Dutch Master Jan Steen (1626 - 1679).
Kooikerdogs are working dogs; once upon a time they were used to lure ducks into a cage (kooi). As soon as the ducks were in the cage it would be closed and the ducks be killed and eaten.

Tara's breeder has a very nice website with lots of wonderful picks of Tara and her siblings. You can find the website here, click on Nesten, then nest Rijsje, click meer .... and then at the bottom of the page you'll find all the pics of these sweet little puppies from the day they were born until 8 weeks old. Have fun and Tara's breeder would love it if you left her a comment in her guestbook (gastenboek) that you'll find on the top right hand corner of the page.
This morning I went to get Tara from her breeder and this is where Tara was born,
this is her mother Renske and
here she is (second on the left) with her 2 brothers and sister.

When we got home I put Tara in the conservatory and soon she was playing with some of the toys I got for her.
And while she was playing she noticed something odd: what on earth is this? Hmmmmmmmm.
This I know
it's food and I love it. This pic is especially for Tara's breeder Margo who was worried about Tara perhaps not eating today. Zoals je ziet Margo, zit ze hier heerlijk te peuzelen.

Off she went to discover more new things and while she did so
she was being watched by Jeeves
and by Vita and Kadootje. What is that noisy upstart doing in our conservatory?
Vita decided to get a closer look,
and then Tara decided to check Vita out too.
Hey, another one of those weird but wonderful creatures, I wonder what they are. They're not doggies. As it was such a mild October day and the sun came out in the afternoon, Tara went out into the garden to play.
Water! And it is wet! And you can drink it too.
Let's run!
Being watched again.
Tara's challenge: Handbags at noon!
Will Jeeves accept? In the end they decided that peek-a-boo would be more fun and then this happened.............
a kiss.
From all that running around in the garden she got rather muddy feet and
she looks ever so slightly bedraggled. Tara is getting tired.
Very tired. It's been an eventful day this first day of her new life with us at Bliss.
Sweet dreams little Tara.

Golden October Bliss

It's the 15th of the month and once again time for GBBD ( for more info click here), the October edition. The weather has been glorious for over a week now; sunny, hardly any wind and temperatures around 18 to 20 C. Normal temperatures would be around the 10 to 12 C mark. It's been wonderful working in the garden with Jeeves at my side during this unexpected bounty of golden autumn days.
A surprising lot of plants is still in flower and the knowledge that this colourful feast of blooms will soon end, makes those flowers even more precious. Soon there will be dreary, dull grey days. It will rain for weeks without end, or so it will seem. There will be days when it never gets light at all, but not yet, not now. Now it's a sumptuous autumn with balmy days and colour and beauty where ever you look.

The Potager
Leek in flower
It's high time that I cleaned everything up in the potager for autumn sowing as I've bought lots of seeds to provide me with some veggies and salad leaves during the winter. But so far I've been unable to do away with such a wonderful autumn display.

The New Border

I'm pretty amazed that my new border is doing quite well too in its first year. The butterflies, bees, hover flies and what have you, are rather chuffed with it too.
This is Fisherman's Friend, an Austin Rose, and it has the most delicious and strong scent ever and very big flowers, simply marvellous. I've been doing quite a lot of weeding lately and to do it close to this rose is absolute Bliss. You're in scent heaven!

Autumn fun Harvesting and planting up baskets and pots for autumn and winter colour. Not forgetting, of course, the planting of zillions of bulbs for spring joy.

The South Borders

They are still going strong and look very pretty in pink.

To my surprise Clematis Hagley Hybrid is in flower again.
This pretty Clematis will soon be planted in the South borders too.

The Front Garden

Where all the roses are still in flower, not with the gay abandon they displayed earlier, but nevertheless very enjoyable.
The real stars at the mo are the asters, they seemed to have pulled out all the stops this year.
Six more days till T - Day.

Have a great GBBD!

copyright 2008 Y.E.W. Heuzen

October, May of the descending days,
Mid-Spring of Autumn, on the shortening stair
Of the year's end abiding still and fair,
A pause of peace, when all the world at gaze.
John Payne