Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

                                                                                                                                              Saxifraga 'Blackberry & Apple Pie' (fortunei)

   Autumn, as John Keats so romantically wrote in 1820, is the 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'. After a rather wet start to the month the skies have cleared and the evaporating moisture hangs low across the meadow behind our house.

   In the fruit garden the autumn raspberries continue to produce a good crop while the two hundred year old apple tree looks on, resting this year, it's noble boughs empty.

   Amelanchier lamarckii leaves drop gently to the ground beside the greenhouse while I tend to the raised borders, dedicating one to the seedlings that have crept into the nooks and crannies around the garden during the summer months.

   At the front of the house the colours in the Cotoneaster hedge intensify with ripening berries. Later I hang baskets either side of the door, planted with white pansies and a new autumn favourite, Saxifraga 'Blackberry & Apple Pie'. The foliage of this hardy perennial is stunning: fleshy almost lime-green on top, with red bristles, yet the colour of the leaf stem and underside is raspberry red, the colour seeping onto the edge of the topside, as though painted on before the previous coat of watercolour paint has completely dried. From the road I can see the starry flower heads among the green leaves yet, as I return to the house, the red glows warmly against the cream render of the building.

   I retreat indoors later in the day where the aroma of rhubarb crumble soon fills the air, calling the family to the kitchen, a promise in store for their hungry mouths.

                                                                                                Appledore, Sunday, 7th October 2012