Awesome Autumn

This is without doubt the very best season of the year, in the short space of time left before winter closes down the garden, we have everything to choose from. Not only do we have fruit, nuts and berries, but the late flowering annuals are putting on their very best displays. When learning horticulture I was told that a plant must earn its place in the garden, it must have more than one season of interest, for example blossom in spring, good foliage, summer blooms and possibly fruiting bodies, edible or not, but above all else it should die 'well'. These are the months to prove that. Looking around the borders there is still much of beauty, even in the decay of some plants. I especially like the poppy seed heads and the skeletal frames of rudbekias. These of course are as much value to wild life as to the gardener, when walking the dogs last week I saw the largest flock of goldfinches I have ever seen feeding on seed heads along the Nidd Gorge cycle track, over forty at a guess! Finally the autumn colours have an intensity all their own, perhaps it is Natures firework display before the darkness, but the quality of the light gives an intense glow to all things, the luster of the elderberries or the dangerous beacon of fungus nestled amongst the detritus. All appears full but on the brink of death, and this gives an intense poignancy before the degeneration sets in.

Fall, leaves fall; die, flowers away;
Lengthen night and shorten day!
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree....
Emily Bronte