Tag Archives: cosmos chocamocha

The joys of leaf mould and November blooms.

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I have spent the last thirty years trying to get some substance and water retention into our dry sandy soil. A few years ago I try to make leaf mould in old compost bags. I checked the bags at 6 months, 1 year, 18 months…  and found… a pile of soggy leaves.

Yet I still felt that autumn leaves were too precious to put in the municipal compost bins. So I netted off an area under the trees at the back of the garden and just threw leaves in there… and there they stayed year after year looking like dead leaves.DSCN8634

Then a couple of years ago I was clearing a corner by the water butts DSCN8638
and found the original bags full of… leaf mould! This year my husband pointed out that the area I had neIMG_1297tted off had… turned into leaf mould. I found another log and ivy-infested area between the trees at the back of the garden.

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And,  with the help of a robin or two (he’s in there somewhere) I cleared this, netted it,DSCN8648  IMG_1278and filled it with leaves. All I have to do now is wait for five years…IMG_1299And this is where the hedgehog may be about to hibernate (he is still feeding) DSCN8639 After all those unexciting images here are some November blooms. DSCN8673 DSCN8677 DSCN8684 DSCN8686

The waiting season

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I find myself prowling the garden, waiting for the dramas of autumn. Some of them are underway already. DSCN8467 Though summer has not yet retired and tomatoes and apples (Blenheim Orange) are still ripening, DSCN8471 DSCN8466This rhododendron (Morgenrot) thinks it is spring. DSCN8473

No idea what this frog is thinking. We have no pond, but I bump into frogs a few times every year (he is a frog; he is smooth-skinned and he jumps). DSCN8463There are roses (Alec’s Red – knockout scent and cosmos (Chocamocha) in flower and even the odd sweet pea.DSCN8502DSCN8481 DSCN8496 What I am really waiting for is the maples to change colour. I am impatient to know which of my new seedlings has the best autumn glow. This impatience is foolish, I must not wish the summer away and the marigolds (Calendula) in the veg plot are still covered in blooms a joy to behold.DSCN8458And there is plenty of drama (Pampas Grass) in the botanical gardens. IMG_1260

A vintage car, Middlemarch and hedgehogs

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Not having blogged for a while, this post includes a somewhat random collection of subjects. There will be short stories and more paintings again next time.

First, can anyone identify the make of this English car of the 1920s? Olive's Car MJ

Next, while I blush at the years that have passed before I got around to reading Middlemarch (George Eliot), I finally accomplished this. If I had read it as a schoolgirl, I might have been a better writer, but hopefully it is never too late to have an improving influence. Eliot has a way of lightly skewering a character onto the page, with the result that they are forever real in your mind. There are no saints or villains to be seen; every character has strengths and weaknesses, can fascinate or disgust.

A few words on Mr and Mr’s Vincy’s relationship with their daughter, Rosamund, tells so much about all their characters.

Vincy, blustering as he was, had as little of his own way, as if he had been prime minister,…

Rosamund… listened in silence, and at the end gave a certain graceful turn of the neck, of which only long experience could teach you that it meant perfect obstinacy.

 And Bulstrode’s endless rationalisations are a total giveaway of sanctimonious hypocrisy.

… is it not one thing to set up a new gin-palace and another to accept an investment in an old one?

The fates treat everyone with impartial kindness or cruelty according to random whim. Yet  the plot is tight, intricate, totally believable and immensely satisfying. This is exactly what the title implies, a novel woven round a community, and yet this is no old-fashioned pastoral, the individual stories still grab you today. People’s mistakes and aspirations are still recognisable today. I’d better stop. Basically, Eliot has all the skills I am striving to acquire and my envy of her is too blatant.

I started Middlemarch in high summer, but autumn has more than set in. The hedgehogs are still feeding; we almost tripped over one last night, snuffling just outside the back door. He scuttled off, but returned quickly when I put food out. They will not eat in the rain, so if it is wet we put the plate under the back porch. Finally, my favourite rose, Just Joey, has decided to have a final summer fling and the cosmos chocamocha is flowering madly. DSCN6632 - Version 2