In praise of fallen leaves

A couple of years ago I was travelling in northern Norway at the peak of autumn. I vividly remember the long coach journey from Alta to Kautokeino through valleys with trees bathed in stunning colour. Yet within a few days of arriving in Kautokeino, all the leaves had dropped from the trees. I commented to a local woman what a shame it was that all the leaves had fallen. She looked at me and said, ‘I really love this time of year, though, because you get to see the contours of the landscape.’ And it was true. Without the leaves to obscure the view, you could see the true shape of the mountains and valleys as they stretched into the distance.

I was reflecting on that special moment the other day as I pondered our newly denuded garden. Having lots of amazing fruit trees is great in spring and summer, but it also means the fall of Autumn leaves is very dramatic and rather sad, not to mention hard work to clear up. It also suddenly reveals the houses that overlook our garden at the back, whose windows are obscured by the huge leaves of our towering fig tree during the summer months.

And yet … now we can see the beautiful fatsia in all its glory. At this time of year the fatsia is just coming into its own, and now, rather than being one of several leafy shrubs at the bottom of the garden, it is really standing out sharply, with its shiny dark leaves and extraordinary cream-coloured exotic flowers.

I can see that this notion of ‘seasonal reveal’ could work well in garden design. I could plant colourful winter flowers (such as cyclamen) behind shrubs that are striking and full-leaved in summer but fade to nothing in winter. We have a dwarf lilac in a large pot near the bottom of the garden. Rather than seeing an awkward twiggy thing in its pot, I could look through it instead and marvel at the colour behind it.

It is also much easier to see the garden wildlife when there are fewer leaves. The squirrels have been chasing each other up and down the long boughs of the fig tree and through the spaces between cherry and plum tree branches. It’s a lot of fun to watch.

In general, since taking on this garden after we moved in two years ago, I have been trying to introduce a lot more evergreen planting, including lots of climbers to cover the fences (such as ivy, honeysuckle, clematis, etc.). But focusing only on evergreens sometimes means missing out on a whole range of possible flowers, or a beautiful show of autumn leaves and – now I understand – the opportunity to change the very contours of the garden on a seasonal basis. The garden definitely looks barer now, but it’s also looking bigger and more open.

I could work with that …

Wildlife in the garden

Photo © T W Photos 2016

One of the most wonderful things about our garden is its wildlife. From the exotic yet commonplace ring-necked parakeets, to grey squirrels and foxes, to greenfinches, chaffinches, robins and blackbirds, collared doves, wrens and sparrows, it’s like an urban wildlife sanctuary.

Our North London Victorian terrace backs on to another long road of Victorian terraces. Gardens are approx. 40 ft long and many of them have mature trees. The result is a de facto nature reserve. The fact that many people’s fences are a bit dilapidated also helps create a ‘wildlife corridor’ effect – we frequently hear (and sometimes see) foxes in the garden; we haven’t seen a hedgehog yet.

We divide responsibilities pretty well in our household. My husband is extremely good at feeding the birds. We have a number of hanging feeders and he even built a bird table for the less acrobatic birds like our collared dove couple. He also regularly fills (and cleans) the bird bath. This is clearly much appreciated by the birds, who are often seen gulping the water or giving themselves a good old shower.

Planting more plants has definitely encouraged the birds, and our chaffinch family are often seen pottering around the primroses looking for food, along with robins and blackbirds. Blue tits and wrens enjoy hopping all over the beautiful jasmine that sprawls across a side fence. We recently saw a goldcrest there too.

Less welcome are feral pigeons – though they do hoover up any seeds that drop from the bird feeders. We have tried various tactics to deal with them, not least to appease the neighbour who complained about them sitting on his roof. We laid an enclosed gravel bed under the bird feeders to hamper movement. This has resulted in gladiator-like stand-offs between pigeons inside and outside of the new ‘arena’ and Benny-Hill style pigeon chases around it.

A man at the local garden centre suggested investing in a plastic sparrow hawk to deter the pigeons, but we haven’t quite got round to that. The best deterrent for a while was a local cat that left one of the pigeons with a bloody leg. We chased the cat away and harboured the pigeon in a box overnight with food and water. We were relieved that it was fine, but secretly pleased that the cat had scared them a bit. Still, they now seem to have forgotten that incident and have returned, though in smaller numbers.

Cats themselves are generally a bit of a nuisance as well, not only when they are ogling the birds, but also when they leave little gifts around the garden. We have tried a number of things –the Silent Roar, banana skins, etc. Possibly the best effect has been from the cat repeller rods, but we are not sure why. In any case we like to see them now and again, just to keep the pigeons on their toes.

We also get slugs in abundance. Before we replaced our old back door, we had a big problem with them getting under it and leaving silver dance trails across the kitchen floor. We have tried a lot of things to protect our garden from slugs. Being organic and generally humane gardeners we tried copper tape and wool pellets, with varying degrees of success. The internet offers lots more tips and advice. I’m almost looking forward to the slug season starting up again …

As I wrote last week, our squirrels love to eat crocus bulbs and they have probably eaten some of our tulip bulbs, as well as eating off the heads of our tulips before they have even matured. They have also launched frenzied attacks on our new camellia (something I realised was not unusual after checking online). One of them even took one of the camellia flowers and stuck it up a tree, something that baffled us for several hours until we saw the second attack.

Squirrels also hog the bird feeders and that can be annoying too. They are extraordinarily athletic and intelligent, though, and it’s fascinating to see them try to access the squirrel-proof feeders. One of the designs has a mechanism that closes off the seeds if someone over a certain weight tries to eat the seeds. One squirrel succeeded by hanging from the bird feeder support pole and pulling the feeder towards itself to avoid putting its weight on the feeder. (To be fair the RSPB does warn about that possibility …)

However, since the incident with the dwarf narcissus that I mentioned last week, we have seen much less of our squirrels, and not in groups of three, just isolated showings. This leads me to conclude (optimistically) that the shock of the toxic bulbs has put them off our garden for a while. I hope it is not anything more serious. In the meantime, though, the food in the bird feeders is certainly lasting longer than usual …