I have not posted anything for five days. I suppose you could say I felt a bit like this picture!

Not in a bad way but just drooping, slowing down a bit. I actually really enjoyed several of our unusually drizzly days this week. Grey November drizzly days always remind me of England and for the few days a year that we experience them, I love them. Cool misty mornings make your skin feel so good after our desiccating days of summer and I find the lower temperatures make me just want to walk in the woods to soak in the smell of damp, now decomposing leaves. We have more coniferous forests in this part of the world but the Larch, Larix have been spectacular as always, turning shades of orange and yellow before losing their rusty coloured needles. The golden carpets beneath are so soft and easy to walk on. Walking up a local butte to admire them was one this weeks real highlights.

I love seeing deciduous trees as they expose their beautiful skeletal structures, reminding me of Arthur Rackham drawings.

This poem also comes to mind.

My November Guest , Robert Frost

My sorrow, when she’s here with me,
     Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
     She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
     She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted grey
     Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
     The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
     And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
     The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
     And they are better for her praise.

There are a lot of deciduous tree leaves to deal with in my garden but it is easy to gather them up and throw on to perennial and produce beds as a mulch through the winter. The newly planted bulbs will appreciate them. The succulents are now all back in the greenhouse for the winter. The grape leaves in there will be the next ones to need scooping up. With the leaves mostly off the apple trees, more apples magically appear. We have been drying, freezing and juicing for two months now and still they keep coming! No complaints though, I would miss my daily morning apple juice and dried apple snacks if we didn’t have them.

Amazingly, for the beginning of November, there are still a few withering blooms in the garden. Fall Monkshood, Feverfew, Phlox, Campanula, Fall Asters, Snapdragons have all persisted until now.

I just have bulbs to plant for forcing now. Those and my Amarylis/Hippeastrum have had their rest, are dry and will need potting up to bloom in January.

Then it will be time to peruse all the seed catalogues and plan again! Happy November!