Sleigh bells in September

No, this post isn't a moan about music in department stores - not even they have started their Christmasitis yet.  It's simply that the flowers for my stall yesterday seemed to encompass the look of about three different seasons:

Summer

Autumn

Christmas

So many vibrant colours still around - love the summery abundance of cosmos (at last, after a very slow start), dahlias and salvias which bring bright and brilliant hues to the first bunch.  I also adore the faded glories of hydrangea heads as they start to turn deep reds and greens as the colder weather comes along.  As soon as I put this clustered head together with rosehips, I thought "I know just the vase for this" and I was right - a cut off classic beer bottle from St Peter's brewery formed the perfect container for this combination.

And then there were the Christmas roses.  What a genius cup to set them off!  If only deep red roses bloomed in my garden in December... I know what I'd be selling lots of come the festive season...  I might just have to print this one out for Tuckshop Flowers Christmas cards!

Arranging flowers for this weekend's stall, I was also raging against the dying of the light.  At 5 o'clock in the morning, it was pitch black and even with the house lights on, I could barely see what I was arranging on the outside table. (Evil plan to turn garage into flower studio goes up by one notch at this point).  Swearing abounded until about 6.45am when the sun got switched on and made the world a better, lighter place.

When I returned from the market, I spotted a fabulous colour combination which had got left on the table.  Inevitably, some blooms are too spoiled and tatty for the stall, so get shoved unsentimentally into the compost bin.  But in my haste yesterday, I just shelved the rejects in a small vase and their colours leapt at me when I got home.  Tatty or not, they are now on my kitchen window sill and I am inspired by this combination - not something I would necessarily have planned, but wow!

Faded beauties

The last flowery stall of the season is now done and dusted.  Have made it through my first year of flower selling and have enjoyed it hugely, but now have to cope with the flatness of the wind down.  Ah well. September sowings still to do, damsons to pick and an immense tidy up to be done everywhere to get things shipshape for next spring.  And a garage to transform??

Autumn rains

Hedge cutting in the rain today, admiring a client's tree, heavy with figs.  Seemed funny to pluck a ripe fig under grey West Midlands skies, but the sticky pulpy fruit was none the less delicious for it.  What a great summer we've had.  Sunshine, showers and more sunshine.  It might not even have gone completely yet either, just having a rest?  Let's hope we can eek it out for a little longer.  Sooooooo much better than last year's dismal effort at seasonality anyway.

A good fruit year with abundant damson crops.  Yippee!

My dahlias are still going bonkers, raspberries, apples and damsons are drooping in weighty bundles and the spires of gladioli puncuate my borders.  I guess that means it is September - and I still haven't been blackberry picking. A lack of purple jam tells its own tale so I don't think scoffing hedgerow fruits with my son on the way back from school counts as proper blackberrying.

A grabbed trip to the allotment on Monday night gifted me a carrier bag of runner and French beans, a hessian shopper full of eating apples, a collection of turnips and a to do list which includes digging up the rest of the potatoes and tying up the tomatoes properly in an attempt to help them ripen before the frosts arrive.  They are scrambling all over the floor at the moment. Bad, bad, BAD allotmenteer.

On the flowery front, I also need to get my September sowings in.  Based on last year, I'm going to sow in trays in the greenhouse, with just a couple of direct sowings in the garden as a point of comparison.  Can't believe that I've nearly completed my first year as a flower grower and have to say that I've loved it, despite the early mornings!

Allotment open day arrives on Saturday and the forecast is for more rain.  I might not get around to any cakery makery, but will be able to donate a bucket of mixed flowers and a rather wimpy gazebo to the allotment cause.  I just hope that plot inspection is not imminent - especially by an expert tomato grower...

Dahlia 'peaches'