Outside While The Sun Shines

The powers that be have chosen to send us a late Indian summer thank goodness, just as we were all resigning ourselves to a long grey slide into winter misery. The omens were excellent as we made our way into the Bramal learning centre yesterday , there was a beautiful butterfly perched on the gate and Richard our tutor decided to change the afternoon session from surveying to garden design to make the most of the glorious sunshine. We worked hard in the morning though, learning the structure of flowers, fruits and seeds before being sent out to find different forms to dissect and categorize, there was plenty of choice as you can see. Garden design  so far has consisted of identifying the different shapes of plants and how to place them within a mixed or herbaceous border, this only served to make me realise that my garden is totally flawed. Richard has been giving us 'Top Tips' however and I'm sure if I stick to those I will be able to improve the garden next year if I dig most of it up next spring!
Pics-Flower and seed form collection, Harlow looking at it's best.

"The Indian summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone, but never hustled"
Henry Adams