IN THE GREEN

Above the line of the cherry tree soars a charm of goldfinches, flashing from dark to pale with every turn.

Now that the leaves are falling from the trees, it feels like it is the time for the birds to return, seeking the rest of the autumn harvest.

For a while, the garden was littered with teasels, self sown wherever they pleased, they supplied good forage for the goldfinches.

But as is the will of self-sowers, they have drifted through the garden to leave just one or two this year at the very edges and in the vegetable patch.

This scarcity reminds me to put out the birdfeeders again.

I don’t know if it is due to the long hot summer that this autumn seems more fiery than usual. It seems that all the oranges, pinks and yellows are more saturated somehow, glowing brighter than ever.

I wonder if the intensity of summer light we enjoyed for so long has created an extra sugary richness to the leaves, revealed now as the chlorophyll recedes.

Or perhaps, as we have become accustomed to such a long period of summer brightness, the autumn brights seem even brighter with the new dark that has come with the changing of the clocks.

But this is no end to the year, because it doesn’t work like that. This explosion of colour can’t be a swan song if what we are seeing is simply a retreat rather than the finale. The colours right now have such a palpable intensity that I can actually feel them. There is a tension, say, between the deep heavy trunks on the beech trees and the umber coloured leaves that float on windswept branches or flutter like flags in the breeze. The beauty of it grabs me by the guts and I wonder if the feeling comes from the fleetingness of it all, its temporality, the fact that it will be lost in the next big storm. I’m not sure really, but I am enjoying the sensation, I am swept up in this drama that must unfold before the next one comes.

This is the last column for me until the spring. I’m not going to stop gardening and I expect you won’t either. But I guess more of it now will be in fleeting snatched moments, done for my wellbeing rather than the good of the garden. It seems that if the garden falls into retreat, then I must join it there in its rested state. And we will return, refreshed and ready to turn our face to the sun when the time is right.