Leaves

Gingko near the Potager.

It's pointed out many times that gathering leaves is a tedious business; but I like to think of it as a harvest  of a valuable resource. Leaf mould is a valuable commodity, quite often under-rated these days; but here we love it, so much so that we even accept extra loads from the Dower House at the other end of the village when it's generously offered by Howard. There's a tradition in the garden of mulching beds with it after the autumn/winter bed work, sometimes it's a luxury ingredient of our compost and our Hepaticas love a dressing of it.

Cotinus 'Grace' on the Broad Border path.

You must tell yourself, whilst it's raining leaves when you're clearing them away that you're making an improvement..."what would the place look like if you hadn't cleared them?". Wind loosens the leaves and places them in an informal order of drifts, lines and eddys; a calm frosty night results in an in-discriminate blanket of leaves. My favourite view of fallen autumnal leaves is immediately post clear-up, when a light leaf confetti garnishes a path or mirrors the tree that dropped them.

Sorbus 'Joseph Rock' on the Broad Border path.

These photographs were taken by Morgan James, a member of the garden team.