Autumn Cottage Garden Safaris

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.