October is but a couple of days away, thankfully the last week of September turned out to be the best week for the whole month – at least weather-wise. There was an unusual amount of climate and weather-related activity occurring in the waters of the North Atlantic, mostly generated from wayward hurricane movements, that impacted the U.K. and also the E.U. and Scandinavia. Rainfall was a daily happening, and temperatures really sank. As you might expect, it was rather unpleasant for comings and goings, and any garden-related tasks came to a complete standstill.

Fortunately, the autumn Hiiden-Opisto public courses, which are a yearly affair, also begin the first week of September. I’ve mentioned H.O. before, but to those reading for the first time, H.O. offers public courses in topics ranging from soap-making and photography as well as language courses, metal-working, music, and a whole host of other topics including yoga, dance and fitness/wellness activities. The courses are first-come, first-served and are fee-based and run autumn through spring. The courses are held in locations throughout the Lohja municipal/territorial region, both daytime and evening, and are mostly centered to adults and seniors, but also to young adults 15 years and older. Thousands of locals participate, and luckily our proximity to town center means the distance of nearly all the courses I take are less than 5 km from home. Yours truly, having taken courses before, is once again enrolled in courses, but this time I’ve not only scheduled a yoga course but various other dance courses every other day of the week except Saturdays. Today being Sunday, I have line-dancing!!

Without the adult education and exercise programs, winter in Finland can seem pretty long, unforgiving, and lonely, especially for the elderly. The courses offer wide-ranging opportunities to remain socially connected, while also providing useful activities of interest. I think my favorite classes this year are the line-dancing and Zumba courses, so much fun!

With all the rain and storm activity, my time in the garden came to a screeching halt. With some of that free time, I was encouraged by all the catalogs and emails to make some late-season garden plant and bulb purchases. I’m sure if you have a mailbox, either digital or in RL, you may have also received something garden-related too! The advertisers really know how to hook you in with all the wonderful color photographs. Despite having no real need for any additional plants, I found myself ordering this and that particular new item. Bulbs are a different story, and I can always find room for them. Last year and again this year, I’ve really started leaning towards Leucojum aestivum and Galanthus… you may know them as Summer Snowflake and Snowdrop! Isn’t it funny that even places such as Finland where people think we live in igloos and get around on snowshoes would want any plant at all called SNOW. 🙂

I don’t do yellow tulips. If that’s YOUR thing, by all means, knock yourself out. To each their own! Actually, with only a few exceptions, I dislike yellow flowers altogether. I do like the pale yellow coreopsis, and some of my daylilies are pale to golden yellow, but I quickly run out of patience for yellow flowers, so you might be surprised by my recent bulb purchase of, Lilium martagon ‘Lady Alice’ which I planted this week without fanfare in several groupings among companion planting which I think will create a wonderful look. Of this recent order was an 18-piece “surprise” collection of hardy perennials – luckily everything was in my preferred color scheme, except three Gallardia, which I need to find a new home – as there isn’t a place in this vast garden space for them! That is a yellow too far!!

Once all the plants were situated, it was time to address all the self-seeded plants which have shifted themselves outside their spaces. I already had spread a hundred or so poppy seed heads through several beds, and quite possibly I will have ‘Lauren’s Grape’ poppies nearly everywhere next year. A single packet of seed a few years ago, and soon I will have them everyplace!! I love these plants. For all their simplicity, they sure do add a lot of oomph and beauty. There is still a large box of those Snowflakes and Snowdrops – but I’ve already fore-warned Pekka he’ll have to lend a hand planting them as there are just too many to do by myself!

With the leaves of some birches all mostly fallen already, and the diminishing daylight hours – autumn is really in the air. As daytime temperatures hover near the 13-16 C range, the overnight lows have been chillier at 3-6 C. It’s just nice to not have rain for a change. The grass is long and really needs cutting, but it never dries out, and cutting sopping wet grass is just zero fun at all. I will likely try to get a final mow of the season in while the good weather is with us, either way.

There were some pleasant surprises to enjoy as I was puttering around the patch on Saturday, transplanting all those various self-seeded plants. These which follow are but a small sampling.

I’ve yet to hear any explanation for what went wrong at Microsoft/MSN a couple of weeks ago. As I was sitting at the computer, the weather indicator alerted me to breaking weather. I glanced to the corner where the weather icon indicated this!

Yikes, this obviously was a huge mistake, as it really was about 14 Celsius. Although this was a thankfully short-lived SNAFU at MSN – it gave us both a chuckle. In about 3 hours, they had finally noticed and resolved the error and things returned as they should be.

Greta has interrupted this post demanding a belly rub, and so that’s about it from me!

Until next time, which may or may not be in October…. Best wishes for a happy autumn (or spring) to everyone! ❤