Autumn in the Hill Top garden

The colours keep coming

After the warm summer and the busiest visitor period of the year, things seem to relax a bit as autumn arrives in the Hill Top garden: plant growth starts slowing, flowers begin to fade and the first cold nights nudge the autumn colours into life. There are still flowers though; pink and white Japanese anemones and Michaelmas daisies, the Dahlias and the humble pot marigold will keep on flowering until the first frosts.

Autumn harvest 

In the vegetable garden there are marrows and pumpkins to be harvested and onions to be lifted. Autumn fruiting raspberries provide welcome late soft fruit. The ancient apple tree in the paddock drops another year’s crop of small, scab infested apples to be enjoyed by the sheep and the local blackbirds through the winter months. 

Fire wall

The vine on the back wall of the pub, which has grown five metres during the summer, changes its giant leaves from green to fiery orange and red before dropping them to the border below to make a cosy mulch for next years daffodil bulbs.