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Look locally over the garden gate with Lucie Giselle Ponsford

The Beautiful Calm of Autumn...

October has become my favourite month of the year. It’s a strange choice you might think. But as a gardener October has a warming, settling sense of calm after the hard slog of spring and the endurance of plantings during the summer months. The garden relaxes and with a sigh and settles into beds and borders. I particularly love the colours: ginger and brown, blonds, plumb & ruby reds. Those changing leaves, a spectacle that brings all eyes to nature. This is also, as far as I am concerned, the horticultural new year. Things that have failed can be reassessed, combinations can be rearranged physically with lifting and dividing. New borders conceived with plans that you can pour over and consider as you have months not weeks to get them in. Dreams and wishes hover over your outdoor space loaded with potential. Nothing will be transformed in a moment and rewards will be next years but that is a good way to slow the pace and enjoy the evolution of nature’s rhythms. You can cut borders back now and tidy your gardens of leaf litter and you would not be wrong to do so. It is nice to do an autumn clear down. However, in cold spots it is wise to leave silver leafed and Mediterranean woody perennials such as lavender and fuchsias and other tender herbaceous unsheared. The degrading top growth and surrounding leaf litter will form a floating mulch during winter, which offers a little protection from a hard frost. Though I would be prompt in February/March to clear up to reduce slug population booms and prevent new shoots being chopped in the clear up. Alternatively, you could leave perennials standing now and get the most from the seed heads for the birds. The magical images of ice-crystal covered stems and dew on webs in the low morning light is well worth the suspended snip of secateurs.

With love, Lucie

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