Slobber and Seeds

I could certainly stand having more days like today weather wise, mother nature has decided once again to bless us with a dry, wind free, sunny Autumn day and the evening looks set to be calm and dry too - happy days!
I managed to sneak out into the garden today while Mr TG was at work, I had all these plans to build stuff but when the time came I just couldn't do it - too painful. Instead I made my way round to the garden, pulled up a chair and took photos from where I was sitting. While the Montbretia and Leycesteria were still looking very bright and cheery

the view to the other side.........well...............not so much

 

Don't get me wrong I could watch Huntly all day cos I loves the not so little bundle of naughtiness BUT after watching his slobber just get longer and longer over the space of 5 minutes - and realising I was actually taking photos of it, ew - I knew this prolapsed disc had turned me into one sad individual.

Determined to do something more gardeny I decided to take a wander - hobble actually - up the lane and collect some Rosa Rugosa hips so I could use the seed. I've been meaning to do this for years because the Rugosa seems to tolerate the exposure here really well and I'd love a hedge from them but I just kept forgetting.
So off I tootled, collected some hips, tootled back and headed to the polytunnel to start digging out those seeds - I have to say this was the messiest seed collection I have ever taken part in and by the end of it I was covered in Pumpkin looking goo.

Rosa Rugosa hips.

Rosa Rugosa seed washed of flesh

Rosa Rugosa seed out to dry.

I'm assuming I need to refrigerate the seeds once they're completely dry so I'll do that along with a few other seeds I've collected.
Think I'm going to use this down time to make some envelopes for the seeds. I could use the regular shop ones but a few years ago I made some out of brown parcel paper and it's been brilliant at keeping the seeds viable over the years - in fact I may go all out and print out pretty ones.

Colour in the Autumn garden

Oh dear! Mother Nature appears to have decided that we've had enough pleasant, windless, summer like days here in Caithness and blessed us with cold, rainy wind instead, the poor fruit trees in the more exposed areas of the garden are having their branches whipped round so hard I'm sure they're going to snap off!
I still can't get out and do much at the moment but I get my gardening fix by watching 'Gardeners World' and 'Beechgrove Garden' (I must go and grab some of the Rosa Rugosa hips from the top of the lane later)  and I'm still managing to get out and take piccies of whatever I can find that's still flowering in the gardens - I have to say it yet again that I'm astounded by the Fuchsia this year, they're still flowering away.

'Hawkshead'

Unknown variety rescued from skip. Appears to have 2 different colours on the same plant.

Gorgeous blousy flowers.

Fuchsia & pinks all grown from cuttings this year and a lovely Purple Shamrock that I haven't positioned yet.

This has got to be the friendliest Robin I've ever come across. They've always been inquisitive but this one just followed me all over the polytunnel yesterday.

Colourful Autumn and dodgy backs

Guess who's popped their back again!  Now I'm completely unable to do anything in the garden or in the craft room - awesome! NOT!!
I'm trying not to let it get me down again like last time and I've been determined not to spend all my time holed up on the bed, but to be honest I'm quite relieved when I do lay down cos it takes the pressure off my spine. I'm not even sure how I managed to pop it, I had a stiff spine for a couple of days (you know that feeling where you just feel you need to stretch it) and then suddenly over the span of ten minutes I got this intense pain that just kept getting worse and now I'm pretty much useless.
Anyhoo there's not much going on outside at the moment, the weather has been bloomin lovely for a fair few days now with not a breeze in sight and the sun really shining.
Thank fully I got the lawn mowed before my back problem hit so I've not felt compelled to do much, cept take piccies of course.

I don't remember the name of this Fuchsia but it's yet another one that is adding colour to the Autumn garden alongside 'Hawkshead', 'Tom Thumb' and 'Genii'.

This is the first Kaffir Lily I've grown. I don't think it'll survive the winter outside so it's just gonna have to be one of those pot plants I keep accumulating.

There are a couple of plants that just haven't produced blooms this year despite being usually generous bloomers, this Sea Holly is one of them - it's produced nothing despite being in full sun. The other variety of Sea Holly I have, both in the ground and in pots flowered very well but this particular variety seems to be sulking this year and hasn't offered one single flower from either those in the ground or those in pots.

These Willow have grown from whips I planted straight into the ground just 3 years ago. I was going to dig them all up at the beginning of this year because they just looked lanky and spindly so I chopped them right back until I got the chance to tackle them properly. By the time I came back to them they'd started to look half decent and less spindly so I decided to keep them for cuttings at the end of this year. I'm also going to be using the stems of these and the Dogwood to make wreaths this Christmas.