Autumnal garden thoughts from Devon
 

Clear skies and clearer nights over the past week have brought night temperatures down to around +8C here, just ten miles NW of Okehampton. Our swallow pairs have each had three clutches this year. The last birds have fledged, but are not leaving the buildings, prefering to exercise at near-stall speeds in the roof spaces, so fearful are they of missing a feed. Prefering to wait in line on the ceiling joists just inches above the heads of garden visitors while their parents swoop in to feed around every 30 seconds! It's amazing to watch. If previous years are anything to go by they will all be off around the 23rd. Their siblings have already headed south.

I was pleased to identify two thrush and three blackbird nests this year in the gardens. It's always a pleasure to see these birds flicking the mulch aside as they delve deeper for grubs. You can always hear the birds rustling amongst the leaf litter in the bamboo grove. Finches and sparrows nest like reed warblers by stitching 3-4 canes together around the 12ft mark.

Rudbeckias, inulas, cannas, dahlias, echinaceas, heleniums, loniceras, hedychiums remain in flower - no surprises there - and there's still a lot of colour in the gardens as these summer blooms begin to be superceded by various asters. But lupins? These have been the biggest surprise of 2007 for me this year. First appearing in late April they have flowered continuosly ever since. Yesterday I was clearing up the dead and dying foliage around my plants and cut down several stems which were preparing to shoot still more flowers.

Clematis 'Mrs Cholmondley' has also surprised me. It's the second year for this early-flowering montana in the garden. This year it has flowered on five distinct occaisions between short breaks - it's large lavender blue flowers can be seen right now. As can the dark red velvety blooms of another montana, C. Allana which also normally flowers around May.

Conversely, my border roses have been something of a disaster this year. R. 'Korresia' and R. 'Just Joey' for example are only now producing blooms which have not been smashed by torential rain.

Mid-September is the start of the busiest time in my historic walled garden. It was never the ubiquitous 'walled vegetable garden', ever since its creation around 1880. During the past week I've warned visitors of 'wheelbarrows and the occaisional hole-in-the-border, which are the result of design changes for 2008.