NOVEMBER

There are still flowers in the garden and autumn colour and sparrows in the rain.

The third week in October used to be the peak of autumn tree colour - but no longer, now we are heading into the third week in November and there are still leaves on some of the trees. 

And there are evergreen plants - especially the fatsia with flowers! Even its fallen leaves are scupltural.

Cherries may be full of blossom in spring but they also have wonderful autumn colour so here we go before the leaves all fall off - 

 

Sam the gardener has been tidying the small streamlet that drains from the back field. In fact our stream through the garden is a composite of several.

There are also fungi in the garden. Something has had a nibble at the shaggy ink caps.

And the cherries are not the only tree colour - cercidiphyllum.

Then when the sun goes again the mist insinuates its fingers into the trees and a steady drizzle falls.

There are a few scattered flowers still with us and in the corner by a shed the lemon balm is thriving. When we get our first real frost, now overdue, it will suffer. The fuchsia, planted by the gate to remind us of the glorious shrubs at Glencolumbkille in Ireland, yet flowers.

Then as quickly as the sun came the rain returns followed by mist and fog.

Despite winter's delay and autumn's persistence some things penetrate the dreariness. The Euonymus that was moved has not given us quite the deep red we had before but stands out beneath the big sycamore.

NOVEMBER

No warmth,

days are cycling down;

no light,

nights are drawing in;

no song

but a storytelling of rooks;

no leaves

on the old skeletal ash;

no flowers

on sweet peas long dug out;

no mow

of the lank rain-sodden lawn;

no sun

but a shroud of stratus cloud;

no wonder

the prevalence of S.A.D.;

no time,

another year near done;

now,

no more,

November.

So, lest we forget, here is one more photograph of the great white willow in full autumn splendour (and R if you can spot her?)

GREY DAYS

 

And so the clock go back an hour and the grey days creep in across the bay, mist, last week torrential rain and in the garden the grey foliage plants come into their own.

Euphorbias are a mainstay, in the garden and also in pots by the back door.

And many other shrubs, shade on shade.

We are awaiting the arrival of the fieldfares and redwings. The hips and haws are ripe and not yet taken by the thrushes and blackbirds.

We still have a few flowers especially the lingering geraniums and, as usual the fatsia.

And the red alstroemeria (that R does not like). She has cut back the herbaceous plants, now over, in the back bed and I have assassinated the bay tree by the kitchen that is getting too big. I hate to think where its roots may be going. Then I cut back the buddleias - I know should be done in February but it lets so much more light into the kitchen when done.

And there are browns, whether in variegated shrubs, dying cherry leaves or moribund hostas.

We have a bonfire but it is soaking so for another day not Bonfire Night.

Plans are afoot to build new veg beds but, as yet only on paper.

So, Saturday, Happy Birthday Izzy. It is raining here so will stay in. Compost can wait.

IT'S A QUAGMIRE

 Nothing but a quagmire,

And nothing but a heartache . . 

One of the wettest Octobers I can remember and every morning seems to start grey and dark, rain spattering the windows - not much encouragement to get in the garden . . .

But I do a little, cut back some Michaelmas daisies and rue, pull up the cosmos now over, bring compost to the dahlias. 

So far our dahlias have over wintered in the ground with a good hefty much of compost to protect them.

However I have had to change the access to the heaps as the grass is sodden - used a trick from the golf course using alkathene piping. That will remind me to go a less slippery way - with less chance of falling (which I do).

Yet, if we get a short burst of sunlight the Acer is there to cheer me up. 

It is next to the transplanted Euonymus which should have turned bright red by now - but has not. This was it last year.

So, off we went for a few days to our daughter in Herefordshire and left home to the mercy of torrential rain.

When we got back, what a change - the dahlias were all but over, the leaves were almost all off the acer shown above, the cherries had begun to turn and the cercidiphyllum had coloured well.

The rain is driving, the gale is blowing and it is colder. The big trees are mostly stripped of leaves and I must rescue tender plants before it is too late. What do I cover with mulch, what do I pot up and place somewhere safe?

Not today, anyway, today we cross the bay for a funeral of an old friend who has left us - lots of memories today, Stephen went ten years ago and now it is farewell to Jan.

MELLOW FRUITFULNESS

Normally we can see thirty miles across Morecambe Bay from our kitchen but today is a day known to the Scots as dreich. 

It rained all night and we are submerged in cloud and mizzle - a mixture of drizzle and mist

I can just see the trees beyond the big eucalyptus where two pigeons sit and regularly shake the water from their feathers.

It is not really cold, about 12C, and it takes until early afternoon for the cloud to lift with a light breeze.

Nevertheless it still rains.

The garden is full of fruit and seeds. The damsons pears and apples are at an end and the last bowl has been collected, the damsons with my father's old shepherd's crook to pull down the higher branches. Elsewhere there are many types of fruit. 

Haws and hips and barberries.

And then there are seeds - and grasses, figwort, woundwort and opium poppy heads.

One of the most fascinating seed heads is that if the yellow flag iris.

The seeds are packed together rather like stacked coins and are brown flattened discs.

Elsewhere we have germination of grass seed where the old compost heaps were sited. I have now to decide when to remove the protective netting and let the wildlife invade.

Some things are doing well - I cut back the overgrown petunias in the pot outside the kitchen not expecting much but they have regrown. 

The Michaelmas daisies near the front door (the door at the back) are a waterfall over the paving. I had decided to dig them up and move them but now am not so sure. For much of the year they are a rather untidy mess but, at a time when so much is winding down they light up a dark part of the garden.

I watched Gardeners' World and M Don says to not water the succulents through the winter so I will do so but keep a close eye on them, particularly the aeonium. Mind you our specimen cannot compete with his whoppers.

And then the sun comes out, leaves have not all fallen yet and, as long as I keep off the bottom grass there is work to do.