"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

 To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease;

For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells."

Well the poetry is all, of course, thanks to John Keats and is the first verse of his 'Ode to Autumn'. As an aside, the pink flower picture above is proof that Dahlias can be bee-friendly despite being unscented. Indeed Dahlia centres almost always reveal themselves before the flower goes over, however ornate, decorative or pom-pom shaped the flower is. You will only frustrate the bees if you cut or dead-head them too early (which I know you'll do for competition blooms!). If you leave the dieing heads on for a bit longer the bees will thank you.

Anyway, in this time of lots of 'brown' in the garden - mud, bare earth, dead heads on roses, general 'over' plant material and fallen leaves that still need clearing, I thought some colour and remembrance of recent past glories was in order.

And I haven't really blogged Autumn. The colours have been fabulous and it has been so mild and gentle on the plants still in flower.

Indeed things in the garden are behaving very strangely.  Friends here already had daffodils out in December. I have them out now, along with Saxifrage that really needs to wait until later. And I still have last year's Geums, Geraniums and Roses in flower plus re-appearing Knautia macedonia 'Melton Pastels' and Clematis buds everywhere. I do hope these later frosts won't completely knock them out because they should really be resting at the moment and saving their energy for later in the year.

And six of the Armeria lovelies below (which I bought on an impulse as fillers) have flowered non-stop since March 2015 when I planted them in the terrace walls. They look like better-flowered chives in pink, red and white. The flowers are sort of papery and pre-dried from the start so they last really well too - even when cut. These little charmers are amazing value all round really.

So, post the poetry, I thought I'd give you just a few more Autumn pictures. They don't fit the other verses of Keats' ode so it is basically a photo blog from here on in - which I am sure you'll be grateful for - instead of the 'many thousand plus words' I normally end up writing.

This plant nearly got dug up a hundred times this Summer as it so resembled a thistle weed. And then, in October (much too late really), it suddenly did this (see below). Thus it remains on the 'Try not to dig up' list.

For me oranges, yellows and reds are the colours of Autumn and so many late-flowering perennials and Dahlias oblige. They work wonderfully with the contrasting purples of same-time flowering Verbena bonariensis, Chleome and Buddleja with all their butterflies and the textural contrast of grasses in flower.

These are tall Alstromerias 'Red Beuaty' and 'Orange Supreme' (dug up from a clump in my London garden) teamed with grasses Miscanthus sinensis 'Ghana' (the red one) and Nasella tenuissima and and the Verbena bonariensis and Geum 'Princess Juliana' below.

And I couldn't resist a couple of butterfly pics.. Butterflies seem especially to love purple flowers - above is a Red Admiral on Buddleja 'Lochinch' below is a Small White on Verbena bonariensis.

I have also had Peacock, many other types of 'White', Painted Lady, Tortoiseshell, the vibrant green of Brimstone and the delicate Meadow brown around, especially on the nettles and briars of the surrounding farm edges. I have not seen any Blues thus far, nor Fritillaries. Perhaps 2016 will yield more.

The Dahlias as ever have provided lots of Autumn colour and flowers for cutting - so many in fact that I have also filled pots in the local shop with them. Above are D. Karma Fuschiana (pink/orange) and D. Chat Noir. The D. 'Garden Wonder' below is such a bright red that it refuses to be properly photographed. The camera simply cannot capture the intensity of the colour.

The two plants that surprised and pleased me most last year were the Lupin and the Geum. I bought a mix of Lupins as quick fillers to plant when I was first able to get into the garden in late Spring/early Summer. But, rather than being 'early/mid Summer wonders' as I had expected, they have been in flower from May until late November. All they need is a bit of dead-heading and possibly the enriched ground(?) to keep them throwing up new spires. I have been most impressed and thrilled with them.

The orange Geums ('Princess Juliana' above - vibrant, double orange, tall and very strong and 'Totally Tangerine' - single, elegant and slighly less orange from a distance), have also flowered all year. I am sure this is also about the soil inputs and regular dead-heading I have done. It's laborious on Geums, because they have so many small flowers, but they really respond to it and I think it's worth it for the really long season of colour you get as a result.

Lupins (like Dahlias) are very prone to destruction by slugs early in the season as their new, young, shoots appear from the soil in Spring. So we'll see what happens this year. I expect them to be destroyed on their re-appearance. They were in London. I may need to simply dig them up and replace them with fully formed plants from a garden centre but, if so, I think it might be worth the cost for the amazing display they have put on almost all this year. Well established plants seem to beat the slugs. And I have kept some seed pods and will give those a go too in the greenhouse.

So that's my ode to Autumn - a beautiful time with lots of flora and insects - and, of course, here we get our fair share of rainbows in the huge skies overhead. So, I'll leave you with a wonderful one (and its shadow) which turned up to welcome January in over the garden on New Year's day......

...... and one of the Buzzards that keeps a beady eye on us from a neighborouring tree.

Every year I grow plants from seed. There are the “must haves” that happen every year - tomatoes, Convolvulus and Nicotiana and then I choose a few new plants to try. This year one of them was Leonotis leonurus ‘Staircase’ which promised to be tall and interestingly orange. Perfect for my hot bed I thought - it would be ideal for the back of the bed: stately and wildly hot coloured like in the picture in the catalogue.

 Leonotis as they should look - Image sourced from Nole Hace.

However, as we know in gardening, not everything delivers as promised. The seeds germinated successfully in the greenhouse over Feb/March and were no trouble to pot on as seedlings. After hardening them off in the cold frame for a couple of weeks they were getting tall and I planted them out in the red bed. Since when they have shot up to the promised 4/6 feet – and now look exactly like over-large, green, straggly, well eaten nettles – not exactly the look I was after. The ‘flower’ sockets close to the stem occasionally have a flash of red but there has been not a sepal or petal to be seen.

Leonotis In my garden

At the same time, on the other side of the garden in the pink bed, I had been contemplating the fate of the Buddleja. Despite hacking it back, nearly to the ground last year, it has grown very large and threatened roses, astrantia and all manner of plants that are now under its shade. I have been thinking it is much too large for the bed and has to go. I have cut it back and thinned it during the summer and removed the most aggressive branches but it is still in full flower.

Two days ago..... I was about to root up the Leonotis and dig up the Buddleja when a Peacock butterfly arrived to feed on the Buddleja. Since then I have had the same (or different?) peacocks feeding on it all day, every day - and these were followed by Red Admirals and even a Comma butterfly.

Apparently Peacock butterflies like to lay their eggs on nettles. All the gardens around here are very well kept and I doubt they have many nettles, if any. I used to keep a crop of nettles for butterflies but they had to go a few years ago for space reasons. Since then the closest I have had to a nettle in the garden is Lamium ‘Ghost’ – until the Leonotis.

The seed packet says, “Leonotis seedlings look a little like nettle seedlings”. Actually they look exactly like nettle seedlings and apart from being taller and non-stinging, the full grown plants look exactly like tall, manky nettles. In fact I think they are less beautiful than nettles.

I have now researched the family and the Leonitis is exactly the same family as the dead (not stinging) nettle ie they are both family Lamiaceae (mint family) of Order Lamiales and Subclass Asteridae. So it is a nettle! Incidentally stinging nettles it appears are family Urticaceae, of Order Urticales and subclass Hamamelididae - completely different.

Now the big question is, have the Leonitis fooled the peacock butterfly into laying its eggs on them ‘cos they look like nettles and are they the reason I have so many peacock butterflies in the garden – or is it just the Buddleja attraction and the two things are entirely unrelated?

And because I am now totally enthralled by the butterflies, I am in a complete quandary as to what to do with both plants. Is there a link? Should one or both go or should they stay?