Reaping autumn rewards
Autumn is a time of year I love and I get as much pleasure from the garden then as at any other time of year. We’ve planted many trees and shrubs that gave plenty of autumn leaf colour and, as they mature, we’re reaping the reward.
Some mornings the garden has been suffused with a golden light highlighting the colourful beech leaves and seed heads of ornamental grasses. We’ve also had colour in the form of orange berries on Iris foetidissima, purple berries of callicarpa and Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ in flower. The larch tree has turned a beautiful golden colour. I’m appreciating this tree while I can because, sadly, its days are numbered because it’s growing through some adjacent power lines and we’ve reluctantly agreed that it can come out.
Dahlia tubers have been lifted and are stored in apple crates in the shed with crunched up newspaper surrounding them. This has protected them in previous years so I hope it’ll work again. Two very large dahlias have been left in the garden and been given a very thick mulch of leaf mould. They were fine last winter in the ground, so fingers crossed as we’ve already seen temperatures drop to -5C (23F) on one occasion. We try to maintain a path between the beech hedge and a flower border to give easy access for pruning. Once cleared of bindweed and nettles, we needed woodchip for the surface. Luckily, neighbours were having a tree removed and didn’t know what to do with the woodchip, so we offered to re-home it and were thrilled that the contractors brought us two truckloads. Some has been put on this path and we still have a huge pile left which will be used to re-make paths through the spring garden. Read more about the garden at www.talesfromacountry garden.wordpress.com.