Colours of September

Once again, I am joining in with Sue's Colours ....
Here are a few views in our garden, taken with my mobile phone, which is nearly always in my jeans pocket.
Spartan apples ripening - these will keep for a long time, with some windfalls keeping the blackbirds happy throughout the winter.

 The greenhouse tomatoes are keeping us well fed this month, while the outdoor tomatoes are beginning to give up.

This strawberry surprised us, as we rarely get a second crop, and seldom any this size.

In windy weather in the middle of the month some trays stacked near the greenhouse fell and put a dent in the back of a frog. I didn't find it until too late. Within a day, slugs had reduced it to this! I failed to photograph the one I saw in action.

The Cotinus cogyrria in the front garden gets out of hand each year, and a week ago I had a session trimming it back. This was to coincide with having an empty council composting wheelie bin. We don't have enough space to compost all our garden rubbish, so we let the more difficult bits go to the local council.

Tthe view from the front room, bright red Cotinus branches in a vase in front of the trimmed bush.

For some time we have attempted to establish Verbena bonariensis. This year we were pleased to see that it came up in the same position as last year. We also kept finding rogue seedlings, particularly growing between the paving in the path round the lawn. After wet weather many of these have been transplanted, and it looks as though we should get a good show next year.

A group of yellows: pears, Solidago and a tall yellow daisy that has been slower than usual to flower this year.

Birds drop seeds, and we keep on finding odd bits of this cotoneaster around the garden, particularly under trees. We trim or remove it depending on how much it gets in our way.

Near the house this pot contains a rhododendron purchased some years ago, which is slowly appearing to look a bit happier. In with it are a couple of self- or bird-seeded items, making a harmonious combination. If anyone can hazard a guess at the name of the red leaved plant, I'd love to know it.

We have a few patches of this sedum, which comes into its own at this time of year. Sue has an almost identical picture at the top of her entry for this month!

A handful of blackberries, nearly the last for this season.

Windfall apples and pears waiting to be cut up for eating, stewing or juicing.

Morning glory on the fence near the house.

Other climbers and fuchsia on the same bit of fence.

Our repaired rainwater gathering system, filled up now after recent rainfall. We put these tanks in 10 years ago when we had our extension built, and collect rainwater off the roof. The original holes for the linking hose were too near the frame, and as the tanks settled over the years leaks developed. A few recent visits to local plumbing merchants and research on the internet helped us to replace the parts. Wine corks have been used to seal the previous set of holes.

 A bee in action as on the self-seeded morning primrose up near the house. We dug up loads of ordinary pink geraniums in order to put in a few herb plants, and these grew up on the cleared ground along with some white campion.

Our purple podded climbing French beans got off to a slow start this year. We had the ash trees at the bottom of the garden trimmed in late July as they were becoming hazardous to the neighbour behind us. Now with the cooler weather and having had the overhanging ash trees trimmed, the plants in the bed nearby are going great guns.

And finally, some wool yarn that I dyed recently. It started out in an off white colour. The pink was dyed with raspberry jelly during the Online Guild May workshop, "Eat or dye". I tried to dye the cream balls with some foodstuff or other without success. The two remaining balls were put in a jar in the greenhouse with some water and deep red hollyhock flowers at the end of June, and left unchecked until last week. The flowers had started to ferment, and it took a lot of soaking in Eucalan to make the yarn bearable for use. Given that there are such small amounts, I'm not sure what they will become.