Autumn Cottage Garden Safaris

Who Stole all the Nuts?

The bird feeders are - unsurprisingly - one of the most popular places in the garden at the moment. They're mostly visited by the Blue Tits and Great Tits, who are common and bold! - but at least once a day, more unusual visitors venture up. The Greater-Spotted Woodpecker usually pays a visit - though for me to get any photograph at all, I have to hide behind cupboards and only very tentatively emerge to shoot - he really is a very nervous fellow - but it's worth it, as he is so beautiful.

The THREE cock pheasants who have filled Mr. Magnificent's pitch are similarly nervous - but hopefully will become more used to me as the days pass. I call the birds each time I put food out for them - Mr. Mag got to know my voice well, and would come running up the garden when he heard it - I wonder if any of this trio will end up doing the same?

Contractors for the Electricity Board came to do some required tree surgery last week - but instead of discarding the trimmings - or taking them away to be chipped and disposed of, they very kindly brought their chipping machine into the field next door, chipped all the twiggy branches, firing them over the wire fence into the hidden, utility corner of my garden - and also cut up the trunks of the ash saplings/trees into wonderful logs, which will dry out, stacked up in the inglenook for 6-9 months and will then give a lovely burn for winter next year.

I leave you with a very grumpy pussy cat - Pip confined to quarters while the birds have their 'breakfast'. He thinks ill of me for coralling him - especially when he has allowed himself to be caught from up a tree and brought in under duress :-). No matter though - he was fast asleep five minutes after this photo was taken, being a pussy cat of very little brain (or memory!)

Hope Springs Eternal in the 2012 Garden

Winter jasmine

My blogging friend , Britt-Arnhild, shared with us her Blue Garden in this first week of the New Year today - buried under a layer of snow in Norway and waiting for springtime to appear. I have also been into the garden for the first time in this New Year - and how very different it is at Autumn Cottage. Temperatures must have been in double figures today, the sun was out, and buds are appearing everywhere!

New buds on a Hydrangea

New buds at the base of the Sedum

I won't go as far as to say that Spring is in the air - I test cut the vine and there was no sap leaking from the cut branch, so Spring is not quite here yet - but doesn't the sight of blossom and buds springing everywhere give a boost to one's morale? And look at the daffodils, up a good six inches - perhaps Spring is closer than I thought!

Daffodil shoots at the base of the old apple tree

The 'never-be-withouts' - good sharp secateurs and a ball of string!

Clematis armandii - rescued from the darkest corner under the vine (what was I thinking when I planted it there?) - now in a pot - will it flourish?

Welcome to another year in the garden at Autumn Cottage!

The Autumn Leaves....

The last few grapes on the vine, left for the birds to enjoy

The clocks 'fell' back an hour last night - the Dark of the year descends upon us...but still the garden is clothed in the glorious colours of autumn. Some glimpses of Autumn Cottage garden in the last days of October...

The last few apples on the tree...and on the ground, for blackbirds and all manner of other beasties to fill up on...

What a glorious view from my bathroom window - red sumach, yellow field maple, oak in the distance...

 

Vitis 'Brandt' - can you see why it has a reputation for especially beautiful leaf colour? These call out to be captured in a watercolour, don't they?

Misty Mornings in Autumn Cottage Garden...

The first real fog of autumn yesterday morning, but as the sun broke through, the garden looked beautifully peaceful...

The peace was only broken by these two little robins, chatting to each other about where the best bugs were hiding in the trellis arbour over the gate...

Gaia's Garden

This is the part of the garden that will be getting most attention over the next few months - the area of garden around - and including - the pond and summerhouse, which I want to designate as the first part of my 'Gaia's Garden' project. It is my intention to create places in my garden to fulfil similar functions to those which participate in the 'Quiet Gardens' movement, where visitors, therapy clients and workshop participants can immerse themselves in the natural world, to sit, be quiet, be alone, read, write, think, reflect, feed and restore their spiritual, emotional and physical health.

I will be including symbols for reflection from many different religious faiths, and other items of beauty for restorative contemplation by  those that profess no religious beliefs. It won't be totally quiet, though...there will always be the sound of running water, and I will offer restorative music, to be listened to via headphones. I plan to engage all the senses, to restore all parts of the Self.

This will take some work, it is a big and important project to me, but 'putting it out there' via this page is the first stage in bringing it to fruition. Visualise it's creation along with me, and hopefully that energy will make things happen!

Autumn Cottage garden really is truly lovely at this time of the year...if you were a visitor, I hope you would like to sit here too.

Your invitation to Gaia's garden will be open at the beginning of 2012.

 

Five Pictures from Five Minutes in the Garden

Just a quick visit to the garden this morning - five glimpses in just as many minutes...

Pip, attrmpting to be invisible - which he is, on the gravel - but not quite on the piece of old carpet, coveing the unused veg box to supress weeds. Inevitably, he gave up, made himself comfortable and went to sleep in the sun.

The Last Bean(s) - leaving just a few on the plant - after a wonderful crop - to supply seed for next year

Another seed crop - the black, bursting pods of Sisyrinchium, some of which I will sow now, and some in the spring...

  'The Coy Mistress' - I love this little figure, even though it is rather saccharine...my Grandmother had a painted plaster version in her parlour, so I guess it is just a sentimental reminder.

Has earth anything to show more fair? Sedum - being spectabile! another common plant which gives much bang for each buck!

 

Pots of Autumn Abundance!

So - you start with this...

...an apple tree in Autumn Cottage garden, loaded with apples...so many that some of the branches are nearly touching the ground.

You combine them with this...the recipe that I used, altered, adapted and combined from an old family recipe, one found in a 1970's recipe book on preserving, and my own additions and modifications:-

Autumn Cottage Apple, Apricot & Sultana Chutney

2.5 kg (5 lb) apples

0.5 kg (1 lb) mild onions

0.25 kg (8 oz) sultanas

0.25 kg (8 oz) dried apricots

0.5 kg (1 lb) soft brown sugar

600 ml (just over a pint) malt vinegar

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp crystallized ginger

2 tsp allspice (quite clove-y – omit if not to taste).

Add sugar, salt, finely chopped ginger, chopped apricots, sultanas, allspice  and sugar to the vinegar in a preserving pan. Allow sugar to dissolve, then bring to the boil. Meanwhile, peel, core and chop the apples and onions (I did mine in the food processor – but they may look nicer small-diced).

Add the apples and onions to the pan, bring back to the boil and simmer for about 2 hours – first covered, then for at least the last half hour, uncovered, until dark brown and thickened to a jam-like consistency. Pot into sterilised hot jars, seal and leave to cool. (Sterilise the jars and lids in the dishwasher if you have one - they come out nicely hot as well, so no cracking).

Mature for at least a month.

You finally end up with these...the very satisfying end product of jars and jars of - if I say so myself - very yummy chutney! Will there be any left after a month, I wonder?

There is still a surfeit of apples here in the garden - anyone local is welcome to come to collect a bagful if they want to make Autumn Cottage chutney for themselves.

The Peace of Wild Things

Bumble bee on Sedum spectabile

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.'

- Wendell Berry

Everyone who knows me, knows how much I love the poem above. The compassionate educator, Ted Bowman, in his wise and wonderful little books, ('Finding Hope When Dreams Have Shattered', and 'Loss of Dreams'),  frequently suggests that one way in which people can help themselves through difficult patches after a loss - including death - is to find solace in the Natural World. I've discovered this for myself many times - and have seen how it can work so well for others - so after the events of yesterday, (detailed over at Autumn Cottage Diarist), time in the gardens at Autumn Cottage was more than usually special to me today. Here are some of the beautiful sights - at all stages on the circle of life, both growing and in decline - that are there just now.

Verbena bonariensis at the back of the new trellis border - each tiny floret is exquisite

Stages of decay which no-one really wants on view are those taking place in the septic tank - an unbeautiful but necessary fact of rural life. The initial impetus for starting what is now the trellis border was to hide the manhole cover which gives access to the tank - and since it is due to be emptied this week, all the pots camouflaging it have had to be moved.

Can you see where the 'manhole' cover is? The big pallet normally covers it - with pots on top...

Can you see it yet?

Pretty well hidden, I think!

The burgeoning Lavatera 'Barnsley', down by the pond - a very peaceful place to sit, though all the newts have now disappeared - out and about, foraging in the undergrowth.

The beans are still producing non-stop - the jolly nasturtiums trailing away long after the peas have been taken out and relegated to the compost heap...

Look at the apples! Chutney making is on the agenda next week...

Buddleia weyeriana - with deliciously honey scented flowers - back over in the trellis border...

The delicate breakdown of the Hosta sieboldiana leaves, by the pond...

More of the pond area, with the summerhouse - all overgrown - but a major component of next year's 'Quiet Garden' project

An opium poppy - self seeded around the garden for the 26 years that we have lived here

...and now there is but one. Pip - The Cat Who Walks By Himself...

 

 

Drip, Drip, Drop, Great Big Horrible August Showers!

A predictable picture - but droplets of rain on Alchemilla leaves always entrance me.

August has been a bit of a washout - so all the great intentions of spending the month in the garden, pottering about, tending to jobs that can be done in the baking heat, interspersed with much sitting under the vine drinking something cold, have come to nought. Time has been spent mostly in the conservatory, watching rivulets of rain puring down the windows - and emptying pot holders on the patio of their surfeit of rainwater every day or so.

Here are just a few snippet-shots of the (very wet) gardens today...let's hope that September brings an Indian Summer in the Autumn (an Autumn that has most definitely already arrived), before predictable Winter brings her less immediately attractive gifts - as she surely will!

'James Grieve' apples - good for cooking, and later for eating

The very fine, ten year old 'border' of ground elder and couch grass at the front of the house in the (badly over-run and neglected) cottage garden...this image taken in the spring...here to show you....

...the same garden being taken in hand by my wonderful son - who is attacking the heavy digging and bringing the old garden back to life...and visibility! Watch this space for more progress...

More watery charms - this time in the kitchen garden - droplets on a Nasturtium leaf

One of my favourite plants for autumn - the hardy Fuschia by the old loo. What a gorgeous flash of colour...even in the rain!

High Summer from Morning to Eventide

From morning light in the herb garden...

To when the evening shadows start to fall...

The still, deliciously heavy heat of high summer...sitting on the patio, moving little, drinking lots, and  the only sounds those of the bumble-bees dipping for nectar in the flowers, the chinking crack of yet another snail being beaten to bits by the thrush on the stones outside, the chipping alarm call of the blackbird as it spies one of the cats walking langourously to an even shadier place than the one that has now become too warm.

This sensuous, all too short season cannot be bottled or preserved like jams and pickles, to be brought out and enjoyed in the depths of winter. Oh, would that it could - but then - would we savour is as much as when it is as it is...fleeting and precious? It is only in words and pictures that I can capture perhaps just a millilitre of the essence of summer in my Paradise Garden - which will never win prizes or open in the National Garden Scheme - but is, nevertheless, precious to me, and available to enjoy from morning to evening...in fact, at any hour of the day...or night.

Here are some more millilitres of summer for you to enjoy along with me on this high summer's day in this little corner of England.

  Bumble-bee...nasturtium

Beastly, burgeoning blackfly on the beans...

...and the troops that fly in to gobble the flies - a legion of lovely little ladybirds!

The trellis bed - filling out nicely after just three months

A trick with plants bought - but unable to be planted now...(above is Astrantia 'Ruby') - leave them in their pots and just sink into the garden. After flowering, they can be divided up (I never buy a plant that can't be divided!) - and planted out in the soil.

Lissie giving her nod of approval to the Astrantia and Echinacea - can't tell they are not planted out, can you?

The burgeoning Herb garden with Buddleia singing 'Come Hither!' to all the local butteflies :-)

...and from the pond arbour, looking in the opposite direction across the herb bed (can you smell that Mint??!!) to the little 'Bistro' corner awaiting a congenial imbibing of wine by whoever may pass

Lavenders and succulents in the terracotta-pot garden - don't the plants look good in those broken pots? NEVER throw anything away!

Pip at the pond

Lilies - the heavy, heavenly fragrance of summer on the patio - one of the gorgeous scents of my Paradise Garden.