Autumn Gardens

"Leaves rustle and spill yourselves

Ever more splendidly, ever more recklessly..."

- Boris Pasternak

Our neighbour's lake, with lichen-decorated ash trees

As I write this, on a foggy day in mid-November, most of the glorious autumn colour has already fallen from our trees and is collecting in layers on the ground to provide nutritious leaf-mould for next year.

Birches mingling with maple
on the lakeside

Our neighbour, Robert, always encourages us to wander around the lake and river on his property where he and Aurelien, his son, have toiled to grow many different trees and shrubs over the past decade.

Sadly, his son died of cancer over a year ago now, but their maturing arboretum stands testimony to Aurelien's enthusiasm for growing and grafting new trees to produce an amazing palette of colours for all of us to enjoy.

I see him every time I walk through the watery landscape that inspired him, whilst trying in vain to remember all the names he gave me for his trees and cultivars...

Paperbark birch

He's left us an important legacy, especially now we see that ash-dieback disease has reached this part of France.

During the past week Robert has had to cut down several of the trees bordering his lake but fortunately he can fill these gaps straight away with other saplings from his son's plantation.

Aurelien was particularly keen to cultivate North American varieties of ash and maple which would put on a great show of red and yellow leaves. He'd have been thrilled this year as the spectacle started early and just got better and better.

A small acer lights up a corner

I can hear his voice urging me to take more photos and record all his new specimens!

As someone who used to cycle around Kew Gardens on quiet autumn mornings, armed with a camera and tripod in search of vivid leaf tones, I've been inspired by this continuing play of light and movement and colour.
Bravo Aurelien!

A great autumn for berries too

Strawberry tree - Arbutus unedo
shaking off the latest shower

Back in our own rather more subdued garden, we also have a gift of berries on our three different pyracantha bushes - red, yellow and orange.

Plus we now have scarlet berries on the cotoneaster which arrived by bird from a neighbour's plot!

Our favourite, though, is probably the strawberry tree which manages to produce fruit and flowers at the same time.

Sudden rainstorm in early November

This is a month of changeable and contrasting weather: rain, then very bright sun; heavy grey skies, followed by strong wind; early morning mist and fog - we run the gamut, but mostly it has remained mild and provided excellent conditions for moving plants around the garden.

Pot with lobelia and nicotiana

Tidying away fallen leaves - into the leaf bin - allows us to see our perennials more clearly and decide how they can best be spread out, mixing and matching with other plants, trying new combinations.

There's virtually nothing that can't be moved at this time of year. And, of course, I always have a few potted-up seedlings which need to find a home.

Talking of seeds, four of the best examples I've grown recently can be seen in this photo, taken in an area of the back garden which still gets some sun

Behind the pot you can see the mauve heads of Dianthus superbus, which came into flower for the second time a few weeks ago. (This is just one of many excellent species we've grown from Chiltern Seeds and has been admired by several people.)

Feathery Dianthus superbus

To the right of that pot, the silvery foliage spilling out from our raised bed is another seed from Chiltern's - Cerastium tomentosum var. columnae - which flowered in May and spreads itself naturally across the gravel drive. It will eventually die down in cold, wet weather but comes back again in spring.

Back garden, still showing some colour from
leaves and berries

Lobelia 'Blue Fountain' has been gracing our pots since July, in tandem with Nicotiana 'Lime Green' - this particular flower came up from a seed deposited in the pot earlier this summer!

The other side of the garden gets very little sun in winter so its structure becomes all-important. As shrubs on the back border lose their leaves, we're compensated with a sunny view of the fields and hill beyond.

That unknown rose cutting I took less than a year ago continues to provide a succession of blooms and is gradually clambering up its new tripod.

Flowering alongside it is an unseasonal echinacea which has managed to perform despite a lack of direct sunlight.

Salvia elegans

These days, it's not unusual to hear gardeners say that their plants are flowering at odd times. In addition to leaves turning early this autumn, we noticed that our Mahonia japonica is already in full bloom - something we normally look forward to in midwinter.

On the other hand, exotic sages like Salvia elegans have been quite slow to flower and have only recently come into their prime.

It makes us appreciate them all the more now that they're holding sway over other retreating plants and providing slashes of vivid colour to compete with the berries.

Salvia elegans making a bold
statement in the cottage garden

Salvias like these are invaluable in late autumn because they radiate so much fiery energy in a gardenscape which is beginning to wilt and head downhill to winter.

The ones with red flowers are probably unmatched for their exuberance, come rain or shine, but the blue shades have a velvet intensity which I also find quite compelling.

Salvia 'Indigo Spires' has some of the longest flower spikes I've ever seen - well over a foot in many cases - and Salvia leucantha (purple and white flowers) has the fluffiest spikes imaginable.

I've photographed and written about all these sages in previous autumn  postings and they're deservedly popular plants for being long-flowering and trouble-free. Like many herbs, they come readily from cuttings and it's easy to increase your stock and put on a really dramatic show!

Robert's sheep and goats grazing alongside the river

Marais Autumn

"I am a little world made cunningly

Of elements, and an angelic sprite" - John Donne

Horses enjoying the cool bright mornings

Now that so much of our garden is in shadow during the day, we find ourselves taking more shore walks, savouring the crisp air and squinting through bright sunshine to get a glimpse of migrating birds along the estuary.

Cranes... en route to Spain and beyond 

For a few days we're treated to the unmistakable 'call of the wild' as flocks of cranes arrive from north-east France, drawn to the silvery glint of the Gironde Estuary marking their pathway down south.

Sometimes it's just a few birds and, if we're lucky, they might decide to make an overnight stop near our neighbour's lake...

On other occasions, the sky can be wreathed with skeins of more than a hundred calling cranes. It's an unforgettable cry which makes the hairs stand up on your neck and has caused Christina to almost screech to a halt if she happens to hear them whilst driving!

Lapwings on the marais

Recently we've noticed that lapwings have begun gathering again in the fields after a summer break elsewhere.

We went out early the other morning and disturbed a flock of about fifty sitting quietly amongst the reddish tufts of samphire which spreads all over the nearby salt marsh.

I gather this is edible samphire, also known as glasswort from the time when it was used in the production of soda glass.

Salicornia europaea

This type of samphire (Salicornia europaea) turns deep red in autumn - the redder its colour, the more salt there is in the water apparently - and it's certainly noticeable in bright sunlight, transforming the marais from a green prairie into something more like an informal garden.

It's an exciting area to explore on a windy day when light dances off the standing pools of water and feathery reed heads.

Lapwings and other shore birds take wing in fright as you approach and their cries can be heard all along the shoreline.

Crithmum maritimum

The other, non-edible, type of samphire is Crithmum maritimum, an umbellifer from the Mediterranean which grows in crevices between the boulders lining the coast.

This also produces vivid florets in autumn and gives the impression of a well planted rock garden - complete with admiring lizard in this case!

Marsh samphire submerged at high tide

Elsewhere, the effect of a marais garden is enhanced by stands of driftwood washed up after a winter storm and left to weather in the sun.

We used to collect the more artistic pieces and bring them home to decorate our driveway - the cat enjoys sharpening his claws on these stumps, but it turns out they also attract groups of large woodland ants so we've stopped doing that now!

Aster tripolium or Tripolium pannonicum

Another common sight at this time of year is the sea aster (Tripolium pannonicum) which is also salt tolerant and grows in marshland and on the edge of brackish ponds.

Again, its red stems stand out from a watery background and its fluffy seedheads drift lazily on the breeze.

For years we noticed some particularly attractive shrubs in the salt marsh which produce masses of white blooms in autumn, followed by seeds like thistledown. We never knew what this was called until searching through photographs on Google Images...

Baccharis halimifolia
Sea Myrtle or Cotton Seed Tree

It turns out to be a plant native to North America, which was introduced to Europe many decades - or even centuries - ago and has become a bit of a thug due to the fact that its seeds can disperse and germinate so easily.

Baccharis is known by many names... Tree Groundsel or the much more apt 'Silverling' which conveys something of its graceful, light reflecting quality.

Baccharis halimifolia
Silvery seedheads next to a tamarisk plant

It's certainly an interesting shrub and the male version has creamier yellow flowers which attract pollinators, whilst the female has these downy seeds.

Being salt-tolerant even in standing water, they've been used to stabilise the shore in many areas and put on a stunning display in Autumn.

A meditative stroll through Nature's garden

Yucca filamentosa

Another introduction from the south-west US is the popular Yucca filamentosa, producing statuesque creamy blooms from late summer.

This is a plant which loves sand and looks best on the shore or grown in scrub where its spiky leaves aren't likely to attack the poor gardener. 

Yuccas can appear quite inoffensive when small, looking pristine in a pot at the garden centre; but inevitably the spikes become more lethal as it develops.

Its leathery leaves are hard to cut off when they are damaged or become shrivelled with age. Once established, you'll probably never get it out of your garden because the roots go deep and will keep producing new stems once the original is removed. Just enjoy it in the wild!

Salt marsh at Les Monards