2026/36 - Crispy Leaves

 September, so the delta summer is officially (meteorologically) over. It feels over! When I walk Puck in the early morning, the air is scented with turning leaves and new brackish water, for it has finally started raining. And beneath the summer oaks along my street, toadstools have sprouted overnight.

My grape is slowly changing colour as well. It has done very well, the grapes were sweet.

My kiwi should take notice and see it as an example...it has hated the drought, has not grown an inch after April and has lost 3/4 of its leaves; they were burnt to a crisp.

But to my huge surprise, the upshot of an apple in my tiny orchard has totally ignored the summer heat, and grew very tall indeed! Longer than 3m branches, no less! It has sown itself at a very unsuitable spot, right at the corner of my greenhouse, so I cut the branches every year. Last year I used them to build a fence, this year I have stacked them in my new dead hedge. I am happy I built this, it works very well to keep the tall wild grass at the right side of the fence. As I was working there, a water vole ran at great speed out of the grass near the compost heaps, ran over my shoe and threw itself into the frog pond - I heard the splash. They are quite rare these days, so it is very welcome to make Hunky Dory its home.

I also cut the lowest branches off my silver pine. This 'dwarf' (ha! If that is a dwarf, I am a giant!) has grown so wide that it is pushing my Achilleas to tilt at a crazy angle they don't like to be tilted at. So I gave them some room.

I used the cut offs to roof my gazebo, using some of the apple branches to fix them in place. 

I know it is only a temporary solution, that roof will deteriorate, but I don't mind that, as the supply of cut offs is endless.

I can now sit in dappled shade at least, totally necessary, as even the 21°C sun is still too hot to my liking.

I also cut down some of the many teasles, that have been emptied of seeds by now.

Look what I found in the hot bed: a large grasshopper. Very well camouflaged, I really had to look before I found it.

There were quite a few cabbage butterflies around as well, but none of the more exotic ones.

The Asters / Michaelmas daisies are starting to bloom now, but they have suffered from the heat, like many of my flowers.

Such a shame, normally this time of year my garden is very colourful...

All the neighbour's figs are either eaten by the birds, or shrivelled on the trees and the blackberries the same. I don't have blackberries, but I do grow yellow raspberries, and they have produced a second crop! Very nice they tasted, too!

 

The above shrub has self-seeded, great!

Right, I'll leave you with a photo of my old Puck at one of her favourite spots on the river. She is very happy that that heat has left the country! Hottest and driest summer on record... we had bans on riverbarges as the water level simply was too low. Puck couldn't care less, she just likes staring at the waterfowl.

Do visit my website at Renée Grashoff Schrijft and have a lovely week, wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff