News from the end of the month

So, October fades into the sunset and November hovers like a ghost in the wings.

Time is a concept I will never get my head around.  Not since I was a young thing have I understood how an hour can be gained in autumn and lost in spring.

I remember plodding sleepily to junior school wearing a thing known as a 'diddy jacket' ( basically a reflective tabard-type item) so I was visible in the morning darkness.  Going to school in what looked and felt like night seemed wholly wrong - surely we would have evolved big lamp-like eyes if this was a natural thing to do?

I knew at a tender age that I ought to be under warm blankets  instead of making that miserable journey. Me and my brother had just packed our tortoise away in a box of hay for hibernation and in Moominvalley the Moomins were tucked up in bed til spring.  Snufkin had broken camp and was walking towards the warmth elsewhere.

Dormouse

Heading south for the winter

 The good thing about it raining all day is that I've recently moved and divided several plants and a good watering will help keep them happy.

It is also an excellent time to collect as many leaves as I can stuff into a sack - much easier to do when they're wet.  I have made a 'bin' with canes and chicken wire to dump the leaves in so  will (hopefully) have a bigger stash of leafmould for next year.

Last week I discovered a new nursery on the edge of the Forest of Bowland that is brilliant for trees, shrubs, alpines and heathers.  I brought home a flowering cherry that is a native of the slopes of Mount Fuji, so I reckon it should do ok here.  It is a blaze of colour (even without the sun on it), all fiery reds and gold.

 

 

I managed to find a plant that has long been on the Greygirl wish list - a Chinese witch hazel.  I went for 'Pallida' for it's sulphur/citrus yellow flowers and freesia scent.  This will be a welcome sight in January, for sure.

 

Sadly, at the end of October I've cut the last of the flowers I can bring into the house.  The Cosmos has been brilliant, flowering non-stop, I had no idea it was possible to get so much from so few seeds - thrifty and fabulous!

the last Cosmos

my alpine corner

heathers in a jam pan

See you in November :)

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Cattus Gardenus

Cats and gardens, for some a tricky combination to be sure, judging by all the anti-cat sprays and such like available in garden centres.  Along with slugs, rats, mice etc they are put in the pest control aisle.

I'll be straight up about this from the start, if the question of cat or dog was put to me (like in those celebrity Q&A things in magazines), my answer is cat.  So now you know where I'm coming from.  

This does not mean I have kittens on plates round my house, own fluffy toys, or wear jumpers with cats on, nor do I treat them like the Egyptians and shave my eyebrows off when they die.  It's just that since growing up with cats I like them as companions and can't help it.

Misty Mab

My current cat companion is like a little familiar.  When I am out in the garden she wants to be there too, find the warmest place to sit and look all Zen.

I have been having a lot of garden days recently, getting out there early to do the autumn jobs of dividing, planting, moving, cutting back, weeding and mulching.  Making the most of any October sun, which I prefer to summer sun.

My cat discovered a new place to sit and observe these activities and, of course, to feel the sun.

the Mab & the chimenea

 

She does not dig up bulbs, eat the plants or sit on seedlings. Her most annoying habit is curling up in my violin case (she is white and leaves hair everywhere), but a few sharp bows to the  high E string soon put pay to that.

If you don't like the sight of cats in gardens, look away now...

camouflage cat!

squashed lettuce cat :(

curious cat

Mahler in Manchester

The Fifth Symphony at Bridgewater Hall

 This is personal and not written by someone educated in classical music etc who is an 'authority'.

I am no expert, but I am a Mahlerite.  That sounds like some sort of precious stone, (I'm not one of them either).

On Friday the 12th October I ventured from the garden to the metropolis.  I had forgotten how Manchester looks and feels at night.  The Bridgewater Hall was a bright glassy light attracting moths from the dark.  Lots of moths.

You know it's Mahler when you see the stage is full of instruments, music stands and chairs.  The double bass players are having to make do with office-type ones tonight.

All available space is taken up with violins, violas, cellos, double basses, a huge gold harp, an impressive and exciting array of weird percussion and a large brass section.

Your only hope is that they have left a narrow pathway for the conductor.

 

a drawing of Mahler conducting

There are some extreme mood swings in the Fifth, some have called it 'schizophrenic' but 'manic-depressive' might be more appropriate, since many of Mahler's friends and colleagues saw in his behaviour the shift in mood typical of the condition. 

Psychologists suggest that the over-elated manic phase is a deliberate attempt by the mind to escape from unbearable thoughts or situations.  Mahler had plenty of both.

 

In a letter to his wife Alma  while he was preparing for the Fifth Symphony's  premiere Mahler revealed his doubts about how it might be received.  He described the Scherzo as an 'accursed movement' and wondered what the audience would make of

"...these primeval noises, this rushing, roaring, raging sea, these dancing stars...".

The Scherzo bursts onto the scene after the second movement in a kind of frenetic, mad waltz.  After this comes a massive change of mood in the Adagietto.

Alma Mahler

Ah...the Adagietto

This is the piece of Mahler's music that most people have heard.  It features heavily in Visconti's film 'Death in Venice'.  It was played at JFK's funeral.  It was one of the most requested pieces of music to radio stations in America after 9/11.

There is something shockingly true about the Adagietto balanced between the strings and harp, violins and cellos.  Between the high strings of consolation and the deep resonance of loss. It

spirals down as well as soaring and your heart goes with it, up into the ether and down to the darkest depths.  As Tomas Transtromer wrote, "happiness and sadness weigh exactly the same".

We are not one thing or the other, given a happy or sad disposition at birth, more a complex layering of our own stories and memories that create a landscape unique to us.

Mahler insisted passionately that "the symphony should be like the world - it must embrace everything!".    

During the Adagietto you are taken to the interior of your self and transported outside it, into a vast exterior world.  Both these inner and outer spaces feel limitless.  

It is a strange thing to experience in a huge half-lit hall with hundreds of people, all of them quietly listening, some with eyes closed.

Your heart melts, but it also strains and breaks.

While writing this love letter, this 'song without words' to his wife Mahler is at the same time saying 'I am lost to the world'.

Mahler outside the opera house in Vienna

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Red October

 

Echinacea

"October is a bonus, as the days can be warm and the sun hazy.  It is important to have late flowers to sustain the bees for as long as possible, so keep the garden going.

The preponderance of golden-yellows gives any rich, dark-red flowers an ornate presence, like garnets in an old gold Victorian ring."

Val Bourne writes about October in 'The Ten-Minute Gardener's Flower Growing Diary.'

A couple of poems from my favourite rural writers -

In thy dull days of clouds a pleasure comes,

Wild music softens in thy hollow winds,

And in thy fading woods a beauty blooms

That's more than dear to melancholy minds.

from 'To Autumn' by John Clare

Digging

Today I think

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 tree,

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

While the sun shone this weekend I have been doing plenty of digging.  And dividing, moving, weeding, mulching and admiring. Taking short coffee and radio breaks, then back to it.  This is me being occupied, useful, happy.

I was struck by how much red there was in the garden ,sadly a distinct lack of berries which I hope to put right for next year. 

Here's what's 'red hot' right now...

'Spartan' blueberry

the strawberry leaves

Acer

fallen Acer leaves

Dogwood

'Littleton Red' chrysanthemum

cut chrysanths and viburnum indoors

I'll end with some words from Wassily Kandinsky on the language of colour... in this instance, red.

"The unbounded warmth of red rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity.  It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigour aimlessly.

In music, it is a sound of trumpets,strong, harsh and ringing.

Vermillion is a red with a feeling of sharpness, like glowing steel which can be cooled by water."

More from the garden soon :)

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