Going underground

Oops! I haven't posted anything this month and it's almost over.

I have been busy doing all the jobs I had to finish before the garden  goes to sleep.  Take full advantage of the opportune moment to plant and re-plant, then condition the soil for the new growing season.

A huge bee was buzzing in my bonnet about more trees with autumn and winter foliage, fruits, and berries for the birds.  But this is the state of gardening, endless flux and revolution.

November can be seen as a miserable month with it's dishcloth skies, horizontal rain, cold winds and less daylight.  Without sunlight there is hardly any colour and the glory of autumn reds and golds become dirty browns.  There's barely  a leaf left by now, my Acer was stripped to the bone weeks ago.

It's true that in this time of year it is easy to sink. I take some comfort in the writings of Ark Redwood, Head Gardener at Chalice Well in Glastonbury and author of 'The Art of Mindful Gardening'.

"Despite it's apparent quietude, November is actually a truly trans formative month.  It is at this time of year, in the northern hemisphere, when energy shifts from shoots to roots, and the flow of nature delves downwards."

He writes about winter that,

 "This is a time to be still, and to reflect; instead of the mad rush around the garden within which we are whirled during the hectic days of spring and summer.  Winter offers us the opportunity to slow down, to walk with ease and unhurried intent."

 Books about gardening aside, this is traditionally - for me at least, a time to reach for the Gothic fiction and ghost stories and become fully immersed.  If this is not your thing I heartily recommend anything by Richard Mabey, (I am currently reading 'Nature Cure' very slowly).

The selected poems of John Clare and Edward Thomas will keep your engagement with nature and the seasons alive.

Glass Gardens

One way I have found to deal with the dark wet days is to become an indoor gardener too.  My shed is full of trays of autumn-sown seedlings, garlic and root cuttings, I don't own a greenhouse or conservatory, but I do have an awful lot of jam jars.

With a mix of gritty compost and some pea gravel all I needed were some small plants to make small gardens in the jars.

I found an excellent website selling Sempervivums (house leeks to me and you), not only that but more types than I even knew existed and all resembling something from a book on Chaos Theory.

I have developed a mix of respect, awe and curiosity for the many and varied complex designs, how a plant can be so small and perfectly formed - and the names!

My admiration was sealed by discovering the 'Legolas' and the 'Squib'.

Some Sempervivums look like the things I used to draw with my Spirograph.

I now have several tiny gardens to tend, with the benefits of staying warm and dry and having growing things in the house.

'Legolas'

So, when you are feeling that November is a dead month, remember;

"In the natural world, of course, there is no natural beginning and ending, no birth and death; there is only change and transformation."

waterfall at Chalice Well garden

view of Glastonbury Tor from Chalice Well

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