AUTUMN

Already Autumn! How did that happen?

It’s been a busy year in the garden, the first six months of the year were completely taken up with preparing for our National Garden Scheme open day then after the gate was closed we breathed a huge sigh of relief before quickly starting more work.

Somehow you just know that when a digger arrives in the garden for a week there is going to be serious hard work in store. Obviously made easier with a digger! We’ve dug up an unproductive raspberry patch and relocated the compost heaps into the orchard. The chainsaw was then sharpened and the top taken out of a large sprawling yew tree. This is such an improvement, letting more light into the back garden. Small branches have been shredded,a large hired shredder making short work of it all, and useful timber logged and stored to season. A silver birch was also felled and together with a few small conifers the stump and roots were removed. Following all this we were left with a huge area which needed to be flattened and built up then flattened again to enable foundations to be put in for a shed. A scruffy lilac tree by the gate has been dug out and the metal fence taken down and straightened before going back up.

In place of the raspberry patch we used the digger to spread all the useable compost from the heaps and flatten it out to make a new shrubbery area. As if all that wasn’t enough while we still had the digger we took the decision to lift some turf to create a new flower bed to the side of the house. It was a busy week, no time to stop and stare. Things have moved on and we are now the proud owners of a robust shed and the fun bit, the planting has started. Still a little more to do, a beech hedge is to be planted between the garden and orchard to partially screen the compost heaps, and act as a windbreak. Hedging plants are ordered and due to be collected in a few weeks time. I can’t wait to get them in, a trench has been dug in readiness so it will be an enjoyable job.

Much of this work took place during the latter part of summer and so here we are in the autumn and the garden looks just a little as though it has been abandoned. Obviously it hasn’t been, but there has been precious little time for weeding or cutting back over the last few months. I decided that there was little point in fussing too much over weeds when such major work had to be carried out so for now I’m content to leave the borders alone and once everything has died down then I will start again with cutting back and mulching all the beds with homemade compost.

There might be a slightly dishevelled look to the garden at the moment but that is more than made up for by the beautiful autumn colours this year. So many shades of brown and yellow, the garden is taking on a golden hue. Even better, the leaf colour seems to be lasting for much longer this year. My favourite tree or shrub changes on a daily basis but some favourites have been Katsura japonica for its lovely candyfloss scent, the beech hedges that surround the garden and Acer callipes, the snakebark maple. The latter having the most beautifully shaped leaves which turn all shades of brown, orange and red.

A selection of views of the autumn garden.