Rain, rain and too much rain. It’s such a shame that it can’t be evened out over the year instead of the cycles of all or nothing that we seem to have now. After a rather wet week we had the first proper frost with the temperature dropping to – 1.8 degrees C outside last night.
- We had a day out at Westonbirt Arboretum yesterday and, despite the above moaning, it was dry a with some sunshine. We’ve not been there for a few years so it was lovely to make a return visit. Most of the Acers have dropped their leaves but there was still a lot of colour to be seen.
- Where the leaves had fallen there were lovely pools of colour on the ground.
- On Thursday, between the showers, I managed to empty some of the patio pots, repot the Salvias, Lobelias, and other half hardy plants and get them in to the glasshouse to overwinter. I then planted the pots up with spring bulbs. There’s still quite a few pots to do and bulbs to find a home for but it was good to make a start. I’ve been using nematodes to control vine weevils for a few years and they are very successful but I now seem to have a new pest to deal with. I’ve mentioned several times that there have been an awful lot of rose chafers. When I turned the compost heaps earlier in the year I removed, literally, hundreds of the grubs. Numbers of the beautiful green beetles were a lot, lot lower this summer but two of the six patio pots had their grubs in.
- In the front garden Sorbus aucuparia ‘Autumn Spire’ has coloured well this year. It’s past it’s best but still worth a place in this weeks Six.
- In the back garden Betula utilis ‘Snow Queen’ looked beautiful against the blue sky yesterday morning.
- Most of the Salvias are still flowering well. I planted several under the Roses to help prevent Black Spot. It seemed to work pretty well and I’ll definitely do it again next year. S. microphylla ‘Delice Feline’ is still covered with purple/blue flowers.
Thanks for reading my Six and thanks to Jim for doing a great job of hosting. Find him and the other Sixers at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/
Six on Saturday 
I could look at trees all day… they are all beautiful…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love winter trees when you can see their structure, the white bark is especially beautiful against that blue sky. Those grubs look awful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m with you and the winter trees. More grubs turfed out of pots this morning. They’re easier to spot than vine weevils but also have larger mouths!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Vine weevils are horrid too. I had some in my Aeonium cuttings last year, didn’t realise until most of the leaves had been eaten. As you say they are very easily missed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ew yucky grubs. I am going to plant more salvia too, I think it helped the roses.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We had the same rain, but apparently the cold was much harder in the North because still no frost here and so much the better. The blue (purple?) of salvia is powerful! I love that !
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for sharing the photos of Westonbirt. I visited with friends a few years ago and absolutely loved the trees there. I’m glad you had good weather for it. I’m doing battle with vine weevils and managed to find a few grubs when I turned out some echeveria pots. The birds had a feast! I haven’t found any chafer grubs yet…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve found more this morning 😱
LikeLike
I have never heard of salvias helping with black spot. Perhaps I should try it as black spot has appeared very early in my garden this year, perhaps helped by all the wet weather we’ve had. Your Sorbus is lovely, not a tree we see much of here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read about it in Sarah Ravens book. She thinks the Salvias have a lot of sulphur in them that is released in the heat of the day. This acts as a natural fungicide haunts the black spot on the Roses.It certainly seems to work.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hadn’t heard of rose chafers and I hope that I don’t meet any either! The blue of the Salvia is very striking. I haven’t been to Westonbirt for years but your photos show how colourful it is, almost as good as your garden. 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
The beetles are large and a beautiful iridescent green. It’s just such a shame that the grubs eat roots
LikeLiked by 1 person