I’m all fired up to get rid of autumn leaves

IN

the days leading up to Bonfire Night, we grew accustomed to the smell of wood smoke.

It wasn’t an effigy of traitorous Guy Fox that’s been put to the torch, but the leaves in our neighbour’s garden.

With two massive compost bins already overflowing, he’s resorted to burning those that continue to fall, while on our side of the hedge I’m still stuffing them into sacks.

When you live in the middle of a wood, trees take on huge significance.

One came down in the lane last week and we were out in the garden when another was felled with a chainsaw. The crack when the trunk split from the stump was loud, but not nearly so deafening as the thump when it hit the ground.

We have several large trees in our garden and a number of decaying stumps to show where others have been and from the front steps we look out into a small glade that’s home to towering firs and even some redwoods.

Beautiful as they are, I couldn’t recommend the latter as garden trees, they count amongst their number some of the largest living things on the planet.

But while some of our neighbours have been wrestling with giants, I’ve been working at the other end of the scale, sourcing small perennials I can grow on then split to make more plants.

When you have grand plans for your garden then you need to take the long view about filling it with plants.

The only way to do it without breaking the bank is by raising many from seed, splitting what you already have and never visiting friends without having a pair of secateurs in your handbag.

Scouting round the garden to discover what’s already here, I’ve found several patches of Alchemilla mollis that have seeded themselves into the soil and I’ve already started potting these up.

From my sister’s garden I’ve been promised seedlings of Hellebore argutifolius, a wonderful structural plant that bears green flowers in late winter.

I’ve also been eyeing up the Hydrangea paniculata that grows in my friend’s garden, just a few miles away.

Although her garden is quite small, it is very well stocked. It also has the only greenhouse that I’ve ever come across that is actually built over a stream.

I’d like to divert some of the springs that rise at the top of our garden into a rill – a decorative stream that runs in a stone channel, but as my neighbour pointed out, it would most likely become choked with leaves.

He does have a point, but I’m too devoted to the idea to lay it aside on practical considerations, or the notion, that it could resemble a waste water treatment plant.

For the moment, I’m still clinging doggedly to my romantic vision of a channel of clear water, falling from a decorative spout and running the full length of the garden.