I haven’t quite got around to writing this post until now, but the photos were taken at the end of October.
Rear Garden
The Patio Border – I got impatient waiting for Jack Frost so I cut back many of the more untidy looking perennials and removed the cosmos and any other annuals. Things look significantly more bare as a result. This has given me the opportunity to plant several clumps of daffodils of various flavours. We shall see the benefit of this in the spring. In here I will also plant some of the 200 alliums I have stashed in the greenhouse.
The Sunny Border – I’ve cut back all the bedding dahlias, removed any scrappy annuals. Some daffs have gone in, and alliums follow them in a couple of months.
The Wisteria Border, incorporating the Eye of Sauron. The seating area has become visible again, I’ve cut nearly everything back. The persicaria is still going strong. It’s a good garden plant that, quite well behaved and flowers for months. A recurring theme, some daffodils have gone into gaps, and I intend to plant plenty of alliums in here. I have a couple of other plants that could go in this border. As I’ve said before, the original border needs a re-think, I’ll do that once everything is cleared out/cut back.
The Lilac Border – I’ve planted a few things in here to fill it out a bit, so it does look a bit busier. Whether they were good plants and in good combinations is another question, we’ll have to wait till next year to see how it all fills out.
The Shady Border – I have had some thoughts about the two gaps. I’ve bought a few biggish ferns which I’ll plant in here, they should fill out nicely and provide some good texture. I also have a few mile-a-minute clematis grown from cuttings that should be happy on a shady fence and will quickly cover it, which should make things seem a bit less bare. The dogwood is looking a bit poorly, it has not been good this year, I don’t know why. What would normally be a mass of bare red stems up to 12′ high is much more sparse and a lot shorter. Perhaps it has reached the end of its shelf life
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The Hibiscus Border – The sprawly geraniums, heleniums and rudbeckia have all ben cut back, so all looking a bit bare now.
The Side Passage
Front Garden
I have begun a tidy up in here, and have planted bulbs, but many things are still looking good since we’ve been near-enough frost free so I’ve left them be. The Mina Lobata on the fence line in particular has been fab, more of that next year. I have plenty of seeds for annual climbers that I hope will cover the whole fence next year. On the pavement side of my front wall I have planted more daffodils and some geraniums for ground cover and floral interest. I’m still happy with the front garden, and will plant a bunch more alliums in here too.
That’s it for October.
I’ll be back next month with another Border Patrol.
The Propagator 
There is so much unfamiliar material there! Even that which is familiar look so different. Your castor bean plant looks something like your Japanese aralia. Do you have three different colors of castor bean plant, or just two . . . or is the green one the same as the bronzed one? Is their new growth pink? When I got mine, I got green, pink and ‘purple’. I think that the purple one was actually just bronzed. The pink one put out pink new growth that faded to bronzy green. If I were to grow them again, I would probably just get the green sort, unless of course there was other foliage about that would contrast nicely with bronze. It must look exquisite with golden foliage.
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