Returned! I have not been here for six weeks, and so much has changed. While I was away, the UK has been battered by torrential rains, storm force winds, and on the Welsh borders, snow has come early. So arriving on Wednesday to clouds scudding merrily across crisp blue skies, and clear low afternoon light catching the autumn colours was an unexpected delight - which lasted all of about two hours before huge, squalling, gusting winds and sleety rain came lashing in from the west. The trees are being whipped round like sugar in those old fairground candy floss machines, with tourbillons of leaves spinning across the lawns. I look at the oak and the gigantic lime, and just hope that all those positive surveys and health checks hold good, before making a dash for the woodshed in order to feed the new woodburner. Everywhere there is that seasonal patchwork of fallen leaves and gleaming evergreens, and it smells like winter already - wood smoke and wet ground.
November is a funny time for gardeners. Some people will talk about putting the garden to bed soon, as if it is an elderly relation in need of cocoa and a coddled egg, yet climate change and more naturalistic, wildlife-friendly styles of gardening mean that you might well still be busy and enjoying flowers and seed heads at this time of year. Evergreens obviously come in to their own now, and for a novice like me, everything you have read about structure and form year round comes into sharp focus as those lush swathes of herbaceous growth which I left behind at the start of October shrivel and sink as the temperatures plummet. There is a fine array of seedheads in the beds here, but I will be surprised if they make it to deep January frosts, so lashed and bashed by this month’s rains are they. Some plants have also clearly not grasped the idea that they are supposed to be well on their way to becoming charming Christmas decorations - so much for dried hydrangea heads....
I do have a lot to do here this month: camassia and chionodoxa bulbs to plant, and lots of digging up to do. Our landscapers are scheduled to start work in February, and there are many herbaceous perennials I want to save in order to use them in the new beds. It was too early for this work at the end of September when I was last here, so now it’s time to wrap up warm and decide how many pairs of gloves you can feasibly wear before manual labour becomes impossible. This before I even embark on the all-important culinary build up to Christmas, with the added Russian roulette element of an Aga - watch this space. In the meantime, many leaves to turn into leaf mould!
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