….. the clocks were put back a couple of weeks ago and now outside chores have to be finished early, with darkness falling around 5pm. It always feels a rush in the afternoons at this time of year to do the absolute essentials such as shutting up the chickens and ensuring there is enough wood in the house to light the woodburner. The leaf colour in the garden this autumn seems to have been better than ever, or maybe I am just looking harder to extract as much pleasure from it as I can before the leaves all tumble down.
Many have already fallen but it seems that although there have been windy days the trees and shrubs are hanging on tight to their foliage. Looking out of the window I can currently see plentiful large oak leaves right across the garden – carpeting the lawn and caught up in other shrubs and climbers. They are not from the English Oak but from three American Red Oaks, whose leaves are much larger. Corylus purpurea, the purple hazel now has leaves coloured yellow and green, Syringa (lilac) has turned yellowy green and the copper beech hedge is going all shades of brown. The Fig tree growing against the house wall turned a lovely buttery yellow and seemed to shake itself and all the leaves dropped off at once! This has exposed many small figs that need picking off as they won’t ripen now. We have started collecting up the leaves to make into leaf mould, a precious resource that in a year or so will be ready to spread over the flower beds. All three leaf bins have now been emptied, the leaves collected last year having turned into lovely crumbly leaf mould. This has been spread over the asparagus bed and a couple of flower beds. A new leaf bin has been constructed to take this year’s leaves and the collecting has started – it may take a while!
Just a few photos from around the garden.
Tales from a Country Garden 