“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the Autumn.”

When I started to garden, I knew nothing. The evocative names and romantic nature of roses was appealing and enticed me to focus mainly roses: the array of styles, colours and perfume was addictive.

The first year after planting, the roses have demonstrated their true nature and the idiosyncratic way they fill the garden spaces. Some in our new garden have grown upright, compliant and well-behaved, while others are unruly, stubborn and uncooperative, especially the climbers and older-style garden roses.

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
Frank Lloyd Wright

The informality, wildness and whimsy of all the roses and lavender intermingling together is what I love about growing roses. The interplay of all the colours and textures, perfumes, and shapes is what I had hoped for. This style of garden is not everyone’s choice, but I find it joyful to see an unruly, abundant and quirky garden overflowing at the end of season.

The underplantings of many salvias, lavenders, and herbs attract hordes of pollinators that are in a frenzy of activity still in Autumn, to the point that it is difficult to enter the garden beds once the sun is up for fear of disturbing their work.

The first year after planting, the roses have shown their true nature and the idiosyncratic way that they fill the garden spaces. Some have grown upright, compliant and well-behaved, while others are unruly, stubborn and uncooperative, especially the climbers and older-style garden roses. In some incidences, it is belligerence, and one has to keep out of the way and let them do their own thing because they are not to be tamed.

Autumn has fully arrived with a spell of changeable, cloudy, cooler weather. The trees have turned to vibrant yellows and reds, and the early mornings have a nice brisk feel. The garden is wild and unruly, but I’m taking it slow in cutting all the oversized roses and perennials back. The bareness of winter is around the corner so, before it sets in it is time to enjoy the the remaining heat in the sun while the garden is in this unkempt phase.

“Autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.”
Edwin Way Teale

I find it hard to know because my previous garden was rural, if my love of a bit of chaos is acceptable to the local council, being unfamiliar with the local rules on plant overhang onto the verge area. Time will tell.

Despite the cooler weather and change of season the autumn roses have continued to grace us with bountiful blooms that are in some cases spectacular in size. If I awarded merit in my own garden for an outstanding rose it would have to be ‘Just Joey’ and second place ‘Soul Sister’ known also as ‘Koko Loco’ elsewhere. The size and prolific nature of late blooming roses in the garden is quite something.

Autumn so far has been like an Indian summer with endless dry, calm, days, perfect for spending time in the garden. The days are warm, the birds and thousands of bees are in a frenzy enjoying the end of the season too.

“Of all flowers, methinks a rose is best.”
William Shakespeare

Plans and lists for winter work are underway. The weather has remained so warm and with the continued dry spell, it is too early to move any roses to better positions as so many are still in flower. Like many other farmers and gardeners I wait patiently for rain.

“My garden, like my life, seems to me every year to want correction and require alternation.”
Alexander Pope

The garden offers many options for climbing roses, including fences, walls, and pillars. Climbing roses are the focus of my next project, and finding the best position for Kiss Me Kate, Graham Thomas, Guy Savoy, Mme Issac Pereire, Penelope, Pierre de Ronsard, Pierre Gagnaire, and the Iceberg climbing roses.

Penelope is very pretty rose with long trusses of copper and peach pointed buds that burst open to cream blooms with a blush of pink, and yellow stamens in the centre. It is healthy and has strong dark green foliage growing to 180 cm tall. Penelope was named after the Shakespeare’s character Penelope in The Odyssey. It was bred by the Rev. Joseph Hardwick Pemberton in the UK in 1924. Penelope is a Hybrid Musk, Shrub that is thriving here in a cooler climate and has continued to flower well into Autumn- it is also partial shade tolerant.

At the start, planting the climbing roses was done in haste, and some are not right in their current position and, as yet, do not have the most suitable fixture or hardware for securing them to the walls, pillars, or posts. So, my next challenge is to sort out the climbers in readiness for next spring.

“A garden “makes all our senses swim in pleasure, and that with infinite variety.”
William Lawson

The first year of growing a new rose is sometimes an experiment, and each season one learns by trial and error, but, these moments build the knowledge bank. One mistake I made was being over generous with Sudden Impact late in the season, resulting in large, overgrown standard roses that now need a good trim. Fortunately they have still continued to bloom even though too much fertiliser at times will produce a mass of foliage and no flowers.

You can engage with the world in a very deep way through the very simple activity of gardening
Dan Pearson

Close-up of pink roses in full bloom, surrounded by lush green foliage.

Princess Charlene de Monaco is one such rose that is about to flower again and is ridiculously tall for a standard rose, adding a note of humour to the garden. It is always a highly productive rose so, the extra fertiliser has created a tree like plant out of control in one season.

“We may think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it’s our garden that is really nurturing us.”
Jenny Uglow

If I could add one extra element to Autumn, it would be that the season passed more slowly, allowing more time to watch the clarity of the light and colour changes, all too soon, the trees will be bare and the cold set in until next Spring.

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”.
Ecclesiastes3:1

Autumn is the time for a host of tasks to do whilst out enjoying the sun; planting spring bulbs, pruning recalitrant branches and cutting back annuals and some of the perennials, and of course planting seeds. Basically anything you want to get done to prepare for winter and next spring is worth doing now.

Planting perennials is best in autumn so they have a good start before they flower next season, even though they may not grow too much over winter it allows the plants to settle and acclimatise.

And then there is the soil. Autumn is a perfect time to lay compost and feed the soil to help the plants through the coldness of winter with any extra nutrients available; compost, seamungus or whoflungdung, manure etc.