Diary Of A Wild Country Garden

I was thinking about this, are we too tidy in our gardens? I love to see a beautifully neat and tidy garden, everything with a place and everything in its place. I have a friend whose garden is like this and I have to say it is very restful - for people. You can walk across the lawn- not grass- a proper lawn, and even barefoot you would not sting yourself on a rogue nettle sapling, or hope to meet with a bee or wasp.  Each flower is in its place and as soon as it fades the seed head is plucked off and replaced by another beautiful flower. My friend loves her garden and I love her garden...but the wildlife... they don't love it so much.... We discuss this and well the debate is ongoing! I also have to say my garden is, somewhat sadly, not like that! It is not by design it is just the sort of garden that does not lend itself to over tidiness, it would not look or feel right. It is intrinsically for the wildlife and it is theirs.   We have left some of the leaves that...

So we have now in mid-October reached Autumn or Fall.  I cannot believe how fast this year has progressed. I do love the month of October though as we lose the occasionally fierce heat of summer and cooler weather gently or not so gently sometimes takes over.   We have had a beautiful warm and sunny summer and a fairly mild September and just now we feel the hint of autumn's influence upon the garden. I can look out now and see the once-green trees turning into the reds and golds and bronze colours so typical of this time of year. I love these autumnal colours, they are the most wonderful, rich and interesting for the year and so beautiful. All the more so as we know they will not be here very long before winter takes a hold of the landscape.  The winds are starting to grow stronger now and the trees bow majestically to their great force. The ones that are flexible and gracefully moving with the wind, the survivors in this. Sadly the rigid that brace against the...