Autumn in all its glory - but some plants really should know better!

I was going to do a post about the next stage of tea house building, but that involved my wonderful father-in-law, David, and I was finding it incredibly difficult to write about him as he is currently in hospital after (planned) major surgery - but thankfully out of ITU now and the post wouldn't come together........... so I decided to try out my posh new camera instead and went off for a pootle round the garden in the few minutes when there wasn't a howling gale or horizontal rain!
(for those who are interested my new camera is a Canon IXUS 95 IS and it replaced my old camera which had given up the ghost due to eating too much soil!)

So, on my travels round my back garden, I found.......(this feels a bit like the childrens game of 'I went to market and I bought...'!)

My Fuschia bush blooming away merrily.


Some poppies from that mountaineous region which includes Nepal, but which I can't spell correctly tonight!


Sedum, still flowering profusely.


The Cyclamen haven't stopped flowering since I planted them about 2 months ago.


The Quince has fruited well this year .... if only I liked the taste of them!


This tree has a magnificent crop of berries, but no-one seems to know what the tree is - so if anyone could enlighten me, I'd be very grateful!


The Copper Beech has been quite glorious, but I'm still waiting for the oak (far right) to give up the rest of its leaves ..........it took me about 4 hours to get the lawn to this state and one windy evening to cover it in leaves again!

Just a few of the oak leaves I cleared up.
Don't you just love my sassy wellies?!


The Hydrangea was blue when it first came out, but has gone through purple to red and is drying off nicely and will soon be ready to take indoors for a bit of colour in my hallway.

I found these hidden under the leaves on the border - they are HUGE. Unfortunately I have NO idea whether they are edible or not ....... so I left them there!

A spectacular Pyracantha berry crop.

My Buddha nestling in amongst the leaves and bamboo in the Japanese garden.


As well as changing my camera, I've also changed how I load the photos. Please could you let me know if you think this is quicker or slower than on previous posts. Thank you!

Yeah - it's snowing!!!

A slight digression from my pond today as it's finally snowing here! I've been reading loads of blogs from North America and moaning about the amount of snow they've got compared to our complete lack of it here - but NO MORE! We too have snow, not as much as America admittedly, but we've got it -great big white flakes drifting lazily down, covering everything in a soft white blanket, muffling sound, temporarily transforming the garden into a place of wonder and excitement, I can hear squeals of delight from the neighbours' children as they throw snowballs, it's showing up the fox, bird and squirrel prints and causing Ceefer cat to blame me for his cold, wet paws, .......... alright, alright, so I get excited about snow - but I'm only 8 on the inside, so what do you expect? ALL 8 year old love snow!

The front of the house - with the drive looking rather steeper than normal!

The 'island' on the loop at the front of the house. The main drive is on the right hand side and goes up the steep bit past the house to the back yard and garage. The drive loops round the island and joins back onto the main drive to go out through the gates to the road. The large tree on the left hand edge on the island is Derbyshire's oldest flowering cherry tree. It (and several of the other trees around it) has got a Preservation Order on it, so no work can be done on it without written permission from the local council - and the work has to be done by a Council approved Arborialist.

I have plans for the island........just a little bit of remedial work to transform it into a Japanese dry river bed, with mossy bankings, a grassed area, a seat etc, etc. It won't happen this year, but it will happen!

(note my usual naivety about the amount of work involved !)

A Garyia on the bottom of the island. It was transplanted - well, dug up and plonked there, from the Japanese garden area to prevent it from becoming a water plant! It seems to have taken well to its new spot - in that, it's not dead yet!

A Cordyline on the front terrace.

I bought this Cornus Alba Elegantissima a couple of weeks ago to go up in the Japanese garden and hadn't got round to planting it. It looks so beautiful against the white of the snow.

With the way the snow is coming down now, I should get an even better photo tomorrow.

Yeah, I love the snow!

A sneaky preview of part of the Japanese Garden!

The pond is frozen solid to a depth of about one inch.