Autumn Colour

Before the garden beds down for the winter, I thought I'd share with you the remnants of autumn colour in the border - proof that there is always something to delight the eye. If one looks for interest and charm in a garden it will always be found.

Glorious grasses - even in decline

I usually cut these grasses down severely in late autumn as they start to look untidy, but this year I've left  them to die back of their own accord to provide extra cover for insects over the winter.

magnolia stellata in autumn colour

This magnolia stellata is a delight in the early part of the year. It has both beautiful flowers and stunning perfume.

But it also has beauty in its decline. Witness the glory of the leaves which contribute so well to the colour palette of the rest of Pablo's garden in the autumn.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

quince tree and rose Tess of the D''Urbervilles

This quince tree complements the colour of the magnolia wonderfully, placed as it is behind the summer house. Last year it produced no fruit at all. This year it fared better and I picked a large bowl full of the golden fruit - said to be the actual fated 'apple' from the Garden of Eden.

Quinces are terribly difficult fruit as they take forever to cook  but they do smell delicious so this year I merely left them in a bowl with cinnamon sticks and dried oranges studded with cloves - Christmas personified!

Acer preparing for winter

             

Quince jelly

For the very first time ever, my six year old quince tree not only flowered but produced fruit this summer. Looking very much like contorted furry pears, I duly picked the golden fruit as directed - in early autumn - with a mix of anticipation and delight.

Quince tree with fruit

The slightly furry fruit smells delicious and on Gardeners' Question Time some while ago garden expert Pippa Greenwood confirmed that she often had a bowl of quinces in her study, simply to scent the room. None of the team were enthusiastic about cooking with quinces alone and recommended adding them to apple recipes to enhance the flavour.

Some years ago I was given a Christmas present of a set quince jelly, known as membrillo which was usually eaten as an accompaniment to cheese. So, last weekend, armed with a substantial trug full of quinces, I determined to have a go at making quince jelly for myself.

Trug of golden quinces

What a palaver!

The fruit had to be peeled - not an easy operation given the shape of the quinces - then quartered, another difficult operation  as the fruit is so hard that my fingers were quite sore after all were finally prepared. They were then boiled for more than an hour to soften the flesh and left to soak in the cooking liquid overnight.

Liquid and chunky flesh were then poured into a jelly bag and left for hours to drain. I had to resist the temptation to help the process along by squeezing the pulp as this would have resulted in a cloudy jelly.

Estella's helping paws

Then, for every 17 fluid ounces of liquid, 12 ounces of sugar had to be added to the pan together with the juice of one lemon, the sugar dissolved and then the syrup boiled for 10 minutes until setting point had been reached.

For all that time and effort I ended up with 6 quite tiny jars of a glorious orange-coloured, clear liquid.
Admiring my handiwork the next morning I tilted a jar, only for the liquid inside to list sharply - the syrup hadn't set firm after all. Disaster!

Nothing daunted, I had to empty the syrup into a clean pan and boil all briskly again, adding the juice of another lemon for good measure. This time all went well. I did have a wonderful, membrillo-like solution which smelled delicious with a fragrant honey flavour, tempered with undertones of summer.

Summer captured in a jar

Sadly, my six jars had dwindled to four, with a small amount left over in a fifth jar. That one will have to be mine. The big decision now is how to decide which of my friends will be fortunate enough to be given a taste of summer in the depths of winter. Will it be you?

Sad songs of Autumn mirth

Food for the birds

Putting the garden to bed for the winter is almost complete.

The borders have been tidied, the roses pruned and leaves raked from the lawn. The final garden bin of 2012 is full to overflowing. Tubs are full of winter pansies and primroses and under-planted with the spring promise of miniature daffodils and iris reticulata. 

Michaelmas daisies going over

The final garden task remains – the planting of tulips. I’ve not yet decided whether to plant them directly into the borders or, as friend Avril does, plant them in tubs. Experts recommend digging up tulips after flowering with a view to replanting the following year. I’m too lazy to do this and usually try to plant them quite deeply with the hope that they’ll survive another year.

Digging at the allotment is now complete and the Japanese onion sets have finally been planted. Spring cabbage, Durham Earlies, are surviving – just - hopefully protected from marauding rabbits by protective netting. Fingers crossed! 

Statuesque artichoke flowers at the allotment

The strawberry bed is finally weed-free and I’ve decided to concentrate on growing perennial flowers, rather than vegetables, in an area which is permanently dry - being affected by roots of the nearby ash tree - beginning with a white form of echinacea, courtesy of fellow allotmenteer, Chris.

Everyone agrees that this has been a dreadful year for growing and will result in substantial rises in the costs of vegetables in the shops. 

Make a New Year Resolution to grow your own next year!

Today I think

Autumn colour of quince leaves

Only with scents – scents dead leaves yield,

And bracken, and wild carrot’s seed,

And the square mustard field;

Odours that rise

When the spade wounds the root of trees,

Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,

Rhubarb or celery;

The smoke’s smell too,

Flowing from where a bonfire burns

The dead, the waste, the dangerous,

And all to sweetness turns.

It is enough

To smell, to crumble the dark earth,

While the robin sings over again

Sad songs of Autumn mirth.

                                     Edward Thomas

Forget-me-not

Hope’s gentle gem…

The garden is becoming very blue with bluebells beginning to scent the air and the forget-me-not (myosotis) in abundance. The personal emblem of Henry of Lancaster, it was believed that whosoever wore myosotis would never be forgotten. It was Coleridge, in his poem The Keepsake, a poem of sadness, who referred to -

Forget-me-nots nestling in the border

‘That blue and bright-eyed flower of 
the brook,

Hope’s gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not’.

It grows in other parts of Europe where it is loved in the same way as the English love the violet and the primrose. Myosotis, or mouse ear, is so called because the small, woolly leaves resemble mouse ears. Biennial, it contrasts well in the cottage garden with tulips and polyanthus and despite liking moist soil it grows and seeds with gay abandon in my rather dry borders.

In my allotment I treated as a weed as it sprouts everywhere – a weed is apparently defined as a plant growing in the wrong place! Even so, I do leave a random area between the sunflowers and the globe artichokes (grown to admire rather than to harvest) and allow the delicate flowers to self-seed at will, a pleasing contrast to the dark greens of the spring vegetables in their rather uniform rows.

Twinges in my back remind me that allotment digging may be good exercise but it necessitates an ever longer soak in a hot bath these days, despite being both invigorating and satisfying.

I do definitely concur with Jane Loudon, however, who, on the subject of Victorian lady gardeners in her book Gardening for Ladies written in 1840, wrote ‘She, (the female gardener)  will not only have the satisfaction of seeing the garden being created, as it were, by her own hands, but she will find her health and spirits wonderfully improved by the exercise and by the reviving smell of the fresh earth’.

The author had obviously not experienced allotment digging!)

Omphalodes

A plant with flowers that remind one of the forget-me-not, and one in which I delight at this time of year is the omphalodes (Venus navel-wort). Another favourite of the cottage garden, its flowers are a brilliant blue, hence its common name of Bright-eyed Mary. It grows merrily in both sun and shade and spreads to make a wonderful carpet of blue in March and April and makes an excellent companion plant when grown together with some of the spring bulbs.

Such a wonderful time of year when, as in the style of Picasso, the garden’s ‘blue period’ most definitely lifts the spirits- Pablo cat agrees wholeheartedly!

Pablo guarding the front door