Six photos from my garden and potting shed this week.
Catching the light in my potting shed window: Old Man’s Beard, wild clematis vitalba. Commonly called traveller’s joy. I stand on tip toe, reaching into hedgerows to harvest long stems with silver seed heads. They’re a lovely addition to winter flower arrangements.
Silver coins. Honesty seeds. Hanging from the rafters to dry. They will be tucked in amongst rosehips, holly and ivy for Christmas decorations.
Chinese lanterns, harvested in October. I love the various shades of orange. They fade to a delicate papery apricot colour. And left long enough, they become transparent.
My potting shed window looks out onto the wild garden. So heartening to see hazel branches with lambs-tail catkins. A welcome reminder that spring will return. The twigs make useful supports for my paperwhite narcissi and hyacinths which are in the dark under my point shed bench at the moment.
The last few golden leaves are fluttering in the breeze. Hazel, maple, ash trees make a mini woodland. I’ve planted 200 foxgloves in the wild garden. We sowed the seed in mid summer, pricked them out in August, and planted out, they will sit making roots over winter. I’m growing Sutton’s Apricot, a glorious silky, peach- coloured foxglove, and Pam’s Choice- white with a blackcurrant thumb print in each flower.
It’s dusk before I finish planting. I stand by the pond watching blackbirds taking a last-minute bath. I wonder how they can stand the cold water. I expect it keeps their feathers in good condition. A tawny owl glides silently along the field hedge. Short-tailed voles live in the long grass here. Within minutes, it’s dark. It’s not like in summer, where there’s enough moonlight to potter around. November dark is cold, pitch black. Time to go indoors, light a fire and make hot chocolate.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a walk around my garden with me tonight. I’m joining https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/ for his Six on Saturday meme. What jobs are you doing in your garden this weekend?
Bramble Garden 
Karen, I have also recently joined Six on Saturday and so far I’ve found it great fun. I love the view from your potting shed and look forward to reading more of your posts.
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Welcome to Six on Saturday – I love your garden & especially your garden shed already. Looks like you’ll have some great dried flowers/decorations for inside the house. Hope we get to see those in a future post. I like your choice of foxgloves – are you mixing them or keeping the colours separate?
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I especially love the painterly still life third picture. It looks cosy and warm. My potting shed consists of a plastic tray I put down where I can make space. It reminds me I have two huge bunches of honesty hanging up and needing sorting.
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Thank you Jim. That’s kind of you to comment. I just use an I-phone camera. Always have it in my pocket. I used to just have a potting tray on the kitchen table. Luckily my husband built my potting shed when he left work. It’s got overlapping cedar walls and a Black onduline roof. The windows were rescued from going into a skip in the village when one of the cottages was having double glazing put in. Sorting your honesty seeds is a very soothing thing to do on a cold wet day. Enjoy your gardening.
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Such a lovely post – I hope you will post again next week! I sowed foxgloves this year but on a much smaller scale. I need to plant a few more of them outside. This meme is always a good reminder to me get things done. Enjoy your beautiful potting shed.
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Thank you for such a lovely welcome. We built the potting shed ourselves a few years ago. I have to share it with the lawn mower and all the garden tools, but I do have an armchair and cushions and lots of blankets for teabreak time. I’m hoping those foxgloves seed themselves next year. I fancy a whole glade of them. Wishful thinking 🙂 Thanks again. Karen
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Your potting bench looks a good deal classier than mine! I think mine has untidied tools, dried out compost,filthy newspaper, screws, bits of scrap timber, inner tubes and a couple of buckets. Nothing that would grace a winter vase! Hope to see you again soon.
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Oh those first photos with their warm autumnal colours are just perfect, Karen. I am trying to grow some honesty, but I don’t think it likes our climate very much. I have one poor little plant that I’m nursing along, and hoping for some self seeding to happen.
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Always lovely, Karen. Hibernation begins! 😉
BTW, I finished Kate Bradbury’s book, which I enjoyed, so thanks for the write-up. She is quite passionate about providing wild places for our fellow creatures and I share that passion. Somewhere as a society, we got off the track and we need to consider the effects of our actions have upon the meek. Her story was inspiring. Even though we already have plenty of wild habitat here, I want to make a bee hotel. 🙂
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Thank you Eliza. Hibernation begins, exactly! I’m so glad you enjoyed Kate’s book. I keep going back to it. I too want to make a bee hotel now! Next winter, I want to have all those little bee cocoons safe in my potting shed. Just imagine.
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These are great pictures, particularly the hazel, but this can be a bad habit!
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Thank you Tony. I’ll bear that in mind 😊
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TOO LATE! You will forever submit to the SOS meme!
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Karen, your photos are magnificent. Your shed is very special and always full of beautiful things. Wild clematis vitalba is a beauty with the ethereal silver seeds: no wonder they are the joy of the traveler. The silver coins fascinate me like the seeds of honesty. The very red rose hips with ivy and holly form a fantastic trio for Christmas. The Chinese lanterns are wonderful. In your shed you are sheltered and through the window you see your wonderful garden. The branches of hazel with cattail catkins are gorgeous. You have planted 200 foxgloves! How wonderful! And apricots and currant. It is already night, time to get home but you like to see the blackbirds bathing in the pond. I also love watching the birds bathe. At home a good fire in the fireplace and hot chocolate to warm up inside. If you invite me to accompany, I would happily sit by the fireplace but without the chocolate, I’m sorry I do not like it, I’d settle for a glass of water. And to talk about gardening. Karen to your Mother on my part many memories, love and health. For your whole family love and a lot of health. For you rest and do not work so much, love and health. Take care my good friend. Very loving greetings from Margarita.
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A chance to sit by the fire and talk gardening would be wonderful indeed. I feel it will really happen one day, my friend. Thank you for accompanying me on my virtual walk around my garden. Hopefully, you can sense the peace here. It’s a haven for the wildlife – and for me! Thanks, as ever for your thoughtful commentary on my photos. It is always appreciated. I honestly enjoy reading your comments as much as I do writing my blog. Hoping that you continue to make a good recovery from illness. I am pacing myself and picking and choosing where to spend my energies. Luckily, I’m not letting anyone down. I have to be sensible and choose carefully what I commit to. Sending loving greetings in return. I hope you have a good week too. Love karen xx
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Karen thank you very much for your kind words about everything you say about me. You are a very good friend. As you say very well, maybe it makes reality that we talk about gardening in front of the fire. Do not think so much, Karen you can not disappoint anyone with that treasure of heart that you have. Take care of yourself and more with the cold that gets into your bones: always keep warm. And relax with the preparations for the Christmas holidays. Little by little, the first thing is your health. I am gathering strength and went to the hospital for the result of the culture and he gave me that it was a bacterium a little strange but easy to catch. A person who was not sick would have killed her without symptoms, but as I have the defenses a little low and since I’m not well, the bacteria said “go for Margarita” and it took over with me. I have been sent a lot of things to get strong that hurt my suffering stomach. In short, in mid-December I return to the hospital for a complete check-up. I will be good and I will go. So I pay attention to my good friend Karen: love and health. Take care. Very loving greetings from Margarita.
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Your Chinese lanterns, I’m so envious, I had one lantern from three plants…
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Oh no. I know they take a while to get going. Have you got them in full sun, in an open space, not overshadowed by trees and shrubs. These are growing through gravel and are baked in the summer. Good luck with yours. They will produce more next time I hope. Try feeding them with potash to bring on the flowers. Thanks for reading my blog.
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For the future , an easy way to propagate foxgloves is to lay the dried cut flower stalks on the ground where you want them to grow. Then just weed out the ones you don’t want.
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Thank you. I shall try that. We didn’t have any in the garden, so I’ve had to make a start this year. I’m really hoping they will seed about and just grow on their own next year. Thanks for your advice and thank you for reading.
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Lovely photos. Looking forward to more.
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Thank you Mala. Welcome to the blog. Do feel free to have a look about while you are here and read my recent posts. Best wishes. Karen
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Lovely post and pictures. xx
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Thank you Mike. Are there any other memes you would recommend. I’m looking for more to do over the winter. I’ve set up a writing/reading corner in the potting shed. I won a bench in an English Garden prize draw and I’ve covered with the cushions and cosy rugs. I can’t be indoors all winter. The potting shed is a good compromise. Enjoy your week. I’m sorting seed at the moment. Makes me think of spring. xx
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What a lovely collection of plants. I have completed my garden tidy up, and enjoying feeding the birds and watching them from my kitchen window.
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Thank you. I must admit, while I was taking those photos, I had one robin and two wrens in the potting shed with me. I have a steep roof and wooden rafters and they like to sit up on the shelves behind the potting table. I had to leave the door open when I came in at dusk. So I’m feeding them inside the potting shed, instead of outside and I’ve put water in there, in case they get shut in! I expect they find it cosy. I’ve got a row of wrens roosting on the door slider of the greenhouse. I have to tap on the glass before I open the door at night. I’ve decided to not go out there after dusk incase I disturb them. Thanks, as ever, for reading and getting in touch.
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You are blessed with fabulous wee friends Karen. Magical. 🌼
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A splendid six superbly described
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Thank you kindly Derrick. Have a good week. All the best. Karen
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Love all your material ready for seasonal displays.
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Thank you Christina. It won’t be long now. I hope you have a good week. x
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What wonderful photos–enjoyed them. Your potting shed looks like a gardener’s dream.
I am fixing irrigation in the garden this weekend–holes in the ground don’t make for the most alluring photos, ha ha!
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Oh, irrigation means you’ll get better crops. Good luck with your project. I’ve got about 15 water barrels all connected up to the back of the potting shed, but I water everything by hand in summer. I only water the newly-planted seedlings, and then they have to fend for themselves. The greenhouse takes ages to water, but I love the time in there just peacefully tending the lemon trees and tomato plants. I don’t water in there at all over winter. Thanks for reading. Karen
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Beautiful!
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Thank you 😊
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Beautiful!
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Thank you 😊
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