It is late autumn, and winter is on its way.

I like to think, that through careful plant selection my garden dynamically moves through all the seasons. November finds many summer flowers forming their seed heads, which creates a garden full of architectural structural elements for the coming months, plus vast amounts of food for visiting birds.

With all this in mind, preparing the garden for winter is pretty minimal. My main occupation at the moment involves gathering up my Dahlias. and pelargoniums to over winter in the greenhouse.

  • Pelargonium sidoides grew through Amemanthele lessoniana this summer.
  • It is now being overwintered in the greenhouse .

With the dahlias and pelargoniums sorted, consideration last weekend turned to how I want my garden to look for the coming months. A simple decision, it needs to be a feeding station for visiting birds, plus provide a great view out from the lounge window, when it is just too wet and cold to be outside.

I am really happy with how my small Shropshire garden looks, and hopefully these images will go some way to make you think about winter structure . The majority of stems will hopefully stand tall and proud, some will collapse along their winter way, but do you know, I’m also quite happy with that effect too. I will keep a blog update, on which stems survive intact.

This is my early November garden .

  • Cephalaria dispacoides
  • Veronicastrum, Persicaria and Golden Rod
  • Aster seed heads
  • Scottish Thistle, Teasel and Cephalaria dispacoides bird feeder.
  • Selinum wallichianum
  • Amaranthus, provides great seed for the birds.
  • Molina caerulea Karl Forster
  • Alliums and Hollyhocks
  • Scottish thistles provides 3m of height,
  • A view from the lounge window.
  • The garden remains full.

If you are in bulb planting mode, my recommendation is a liberal application of curry powder in the planting medium. It really does appear to keep mice and squirrels at bay.

Enjoy your November garden !