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Autumn Gardener Blog from Kylemore's Head Gardener 2024

Gardener's Blog
Tuesday, 08 October 2024
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Welcome back to our autumn garden blog from the Victorian Walled Garden in Kylemore Abbey.

Today is a perfect autumn day here in the Walled Garden. The warm sunshine is creating a lovely light, and the last few days of heavy rain and strong winds are nearly forgotten. Our late summer-flowering perennials and annuals like Sedums, Anaphalis, Asters, Persicarias and Cupheas still give the garden enough colour and interest for this time of year. They could flower right into the beginning of November if the weather is playing along. Shades of reds, pinks, whites and purples are dominating the colour palette at the moment. The lawns are still very green, especially after getting the needed autumn feed. Also, the trees are still bearing many leaves.

Pic1 Autumn colour in the Formal Flower Garden; Sedums, Anaphalis and Fuchsias are still in full bloom in the Ribbon beds.

Pic2 Gladiolus murielae (formerly known as Acidanthera),the Abyssinian gladiolus; an attractive and unusual bulb with scented flowers, originally from Somalia and Ethiopia - East Africa where it grows in higher altitudes; introduced in 1844 by Christian Hochstetter, a German botanist.

Our two heritage varieties of Petunias, Petunia integrefolia and Petunia axillaris have also a particular late flowering season this year, probably due to the late spring.

The displays in our ‘Vinery-Beds’, situated in front of there stored Vinery to the east and the ruins of the former Vinery to the west, are still vibrant. We already harvested seeds of these two species since the seeds are very difficult to acquire from other sources and nurseries. The seeds are tiny like dust and need to be handled with care. One stormy night can wipe out our next year’s Petunia population if the seeds are not harvested in time.

Pic3 Petunia integrefolia (purple) and Petunia axillaris (white) are still flowering freely in front of the former West-Vinery.

The Cannas in the Parterre are blossoming in abundance once again. An annual feed with our own produced compost is enough for these subtropical perennials to grow and flower every year. The plants are staying in the beds over winter and don’t need to be lifted due to our temperate climate. They are great plants for our Victorian garden since they have the needed sub tropical look, have a long flowering season and thrive well in moist soil, which we have no shortage of.

Pic4 Flowering Canna indica in the Parterre.

Asters are also great autumn flowering perennials. We are growing two heritage species, Aster novi-blegii and Aster turbinellus, a lovely wild prairie aster. They are great cut flowers and we are using them quite often in bouquets for our public buildings at this time of year. They both have small delicate flower heads in purple shades.

Pic5 Aster novi-belgii in full bloom in our cut flower section along the west wall


Pic6 Small bouquets with a selection of late summer flowering perennials.

Pic7 Persicaria affinis, the Himalayan bistort, is flowering in our formal spiral beds along the main path since four months non-stop. 

Our vegetable garden season was a bit different this year. Crops like carrots, which normally struggle with the carrot root fly did well for a change. The netting and interplanting of spring onions prevented the infestation of the fly this time around, we also did not thin out the carrots and sown them quite thin.

The pumpkins and courgettes on the other hand were very disappointing, to the extend that we did not have one pumpkin and only a handful of courgettes. The cold, late spring and wet summer were just not in favour of growing these crops successfully this season. The early potatoes did quite well, the main potatoes were very mixed. So is every year different and very unpredictable. Next year could be a bumper year for pumpkins, fingers crossed!

Pic8 Heritage varieties of carrots and spring onion are ready for our vegetable sale.

Pic9 Harvested main season potatoes.

It is time to think about the coming spring season already.

Several thousand spring bedding seeds were sown end of August and potted on already. They were moved outside into our cold frames to be hardened off before planting within the coming weeks. Dry and sunny weather like today are ideal growing conditions for these small seedlings and their roots will be hopefully well established by the time they are getting planted.

Pic10 New generation of spring bedding seedlings in our restored glasshouse

We also harvested our first apples from the new orchard beside the former farm. The trees were only planted in March this year. The yield was not big but it was only the first season and the cold and late spring was not in favour for pollinators. ‘Katy’, a variety from Sweden, performed the best, hopefully the others will follow suit.

Pic11 The first harvest from the new apple orchard.

There is plenty to do within the coming weeks. From sieving compost and topdressing borders and beds, seed harvests and storage, planting thousands of spring bulbs and bedding, the list is long.

Let’s hope the weather will be in our favour for a bit longer.

Pic12 Greetings from Perry who is enjoying his breakfast in the autumn sun!

Your Head Gardener

Anja Gohlke