My wife and I started gardening in Fukuoka (Japan) in 2003. There was nothing but muddy clayey sloping land. At the beginning we made several structure such as steps and paths, and planted turf, fruit trees, roses, herbs etc.
In 2010, we visited several famous English gardens, including Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Mottisfont Abbey Garden and Hidcote Manor Garden. We were shocked by the glory of those gardens. Since then, we have been trying to make small but glorious gardens by ourselves.
The summer of 2022 was really hot, but the mornings and evenings have become much cooler since the beginning of October.
The purple asters are in full bloom in the potager. The dwarf sunflowers (Sunbelievable), whose leaves were damaged by a typhoon in September, have recovered a little and are still flowering, albeit in small numbers.
In the raised bed with a standard rose, many Echium vulgare are sprouting from spilt seeds. Seedlings that sprouted a little earlier are already bearing blue flowers.
In the dahlia raised bed, all three dahlia varieties went dormant after dying in the summer due to the intense heat, and one of them has sprouted and is growing a little. As a replacement for the dahlias, the zinnias are now in full bloom with many flowers.
In the potager border beds, the perennial aster has started to flower. In winter to early summer they are potted so that they do not compete with other flowers and plants and can be moved around.
The bright green shoots of the boxwood have started to grow in September and are very beautiful. We will prune again as necessary, keeping an eye out for pest infestations.
The potted dwarf sunflowers in the triangular raised beds continue to flower, although their foliage has been damaged by the strong winds, including sea spray from typhoons.
The small apple variety ’Alpine Maiden’ is turning red in the Potager. It is almost time to harvest. If you look carefully, you can see branches with apple blossoms. Often flowers bloom out of season at this time of year. Once, the flowers were followed by fruit. But they did not grow large as the weather is gradually getting colder.
Another typhoon is expected to develop over the South Sea and approach tomorrow night. It is a very strong and large typhoon and could cause more damage than the last one. The apples were harvested today. A friend and her husband just arrived, so we picked them together. We picked about 50 apples.