Signs of autumn

raggygranny - We've been wondering what on earth is happening to the busy lizzies! Its a fungus is it?

Old hippies never die - dont like underwear but it gets chilly at times

The mind boggles!!!

Well its definitely autumnal today ladies! Had to resort to wearing knickers in the house!

All my busy lizzies have died - leaves went yellow and dropped off. DH says he has heard that they are being attacked by a fungus. Anyone else noticed/heard this?

Chilly north-westerly blowing today and very damp. We've lit the fire in the stove.

Annobel, unless the horse chestnuts look as if someone has been at the trunks with rusty brown paint, it is probably just early leaf drop, the same as the sycamores opposite my house, and the lilacs in my garden. We have a large acreage of beautiful public woodland near here and I noticed, last year and this, signs of chestnut rust on some of the trees. I hope it is not going to spread, because I don't think there is any remedy but to cut down the trees.

I have spider webs on my hedge and some sycamore leaves from next door on the lawn........

Talk about second flowering, though! My magnolia has a few more flowers.
I picked blackberries from the bush at the bottom of the garden yesterday, and with the ripe ones, there were bees busy pollinating a second lot of flowers higher up the bush.

The runner beans - I had a few, having planted them out rather late because it was so dry - now I am making sure they are watered and more flowers are appearing. And I have some more strawberries too, a second lot.
I'm sure this is because of the dry weather.

arty, did your magnolia flower earlier as well this year? A good number of flowering plants have second flowerings some years. Could be a similar things with your polyanthus, especially if they like the spot where you've heeled them in.

My viburnum bodnantense is already flowering. It has been known to start late in August and go on until March but I've never seen it flowering in July. I noticed some brown on horse chestnut leaves today and hope that this wasn't a sign of the disease that many of them seem to be suffering from.

I don't know about signs of Autumn - I was out in my garden today and suddenly noticed that my magnolia stellata is FLOWERING! It has nine or ten flowers beginning to open - one fully open - at least eight months early. I had also heeled some spent polyanthus into a patch of spare earth to overwinter. They are currently flowering their heads off! Has everything gone daft this year? Anyone got a theory?

Outdoor thermom says it did go down to 7 last night. Must have been chilly on the hills. This morning is perfect blue sky and sunshine.

Wind from the north forecast for tonight and temperature down to 7°C!

The trees in our road are turning very early this year - likewise my magnolia, and lilacs dropping leaves all over the garden. The flowering plants and roses have gone over earlier too, just when I am trying to keep the borders looking nice as we are trying to sell our house. I always grow flowers in containers to fill gaps in the borders later in the summer (zinnias, dahlias etc) but they are being pressed into service now. It's just been too dry this year, I think.

Our brambles are still flowering. No ripe blackberries for a while yet. But then I do live in the sub-arctic north.

The crown of the silver birch outside my window is looking decidedly thin this morning.

There were some ripe blackberries in our garden back in June - not enought to do anything with - and now they're gone [I managed to eat one or two ]. Does this mean that autumn is over????

I read this the other and thought NO NO NO! BUT then I played golf on Wednesday and the course was defintely autumnul. there were lots of leaves on the greens and quite a few trees have lost their greenness and look decidenly dare I say it, brown. I had to keep my wooly and long trousers on - played well though - for me that is

....we're doomed, doomed......

Shut up, the lot of yer!!

Leaves are falling off one of my honeysuckles. To me, the end of summer is when I see the first cyclamen.

I've an oak at the bottom of the garden. There's a definite tint to it now, as there is to the rowans.

Rowan leaf tinting noticed today.

We are looking forward to Spring, and hoping that the last two cooler summers will be a continuing trend. Summer here in the sub tropics used to be unbearable round about Christmas. I remember one December, the office air conditioning was broken, it was 40 degrees c at midday, and by the time I went home on the train, and walked the 10 minutes to our house, I was boiling hot. I took the shortcut through our back gate, and there was our little pool, looking cool and inviting. Without even thinking about it, or really knowing what I was doing I climbed in, still wearing my office clothes, and refused to budge.

My husband saw me from the verandah, and swore steam rose from the pool when I got in. He brought me a cold beer, and I drank it in the pool.

But those summers seem to have eased off recently. Perhaps our heat is going to the rest of the world, to cause global warming. Well, please keep it. We don't want it back!

I know! It's a bit weird isn't it? There we are just getting used to the summer and .... well, I won't say it. But when I lived in Thailand there was only one season, well, maybe two: hot and wet plus hotter and wetter. I really missed the seasonal changes. The other two things I missed were pavements and frosty mornings. My adult Thai pupils asked me what I missed and when I told them they didn't know what either of those things were.

baggy - Don't!!

My garden definitely "turns" a bit about now. The best of the high summer stuff starts going over, although later flowering stuff still comes on.