The freeze came hard this week to make ice on the troughs and suspend the water lilies in the pond. Light bounced brilliantly from the frozen surface and for the first time the landscape was united by white and glisten and a proper crunch underfoot. In the thaw, as the tawniness returned, the remains of the autumn colour came tumbling down from the branches to patter the stillness and accelerate this turn in the season.
The dahlias were instantly blackened where they had been eking out their last few days and the vulnerable nasturtiums melted to practically nothing. The profusion of foliage they always put on in the cool of the autumn extends their reach defiantly beyond the beds as if to say, ‘We are willing to keep going.’, but the full stop of freeze marks an abrupt end to their growing season. Under the wreckage and waiting for next year they leave their plentiful seed, plump and fleshy and easy gathering.
We had been watching the weather forecasts carefully to draw out the last few days before the turn. Leaving the pelargonium under the veranda for a last fortnight of good light before coming inside where they will strain for the winter. Just this week we moved the plants that I’ve been growing on from seed that won’t fit into the frames down to the polytunnel. Anemone pavonina that are already up and ready for their winter growing season, but maybe not the rain that, in combination with the cold, will be their downfall until they get into the ground. The potted bulbs also benefit from a drier and more known exposure to our winter and from a little extra heat, so that they can steal a march on time when we are desperate for some life on the other side of winter.
Despite its thin skin, the polytunnel provides so much in terms of extending our seasons and harbouring from the elements. At the end of November however, it begins to go into a two months hiatus, as the sun dips early behind the hill and casts it into shadow from mid-afternoon. The small amount of extra heat will be good to keep the autumn germinated sweet peas in motion and forming a good root system for a spring planting. We will just have to be careful to neither over, nor underwater. My autumn sown seed that has already germinated will also continue to build for a quick getaway in the spring, whilst the freeze that easily penetrates will be necessary for all the seeds that need it to break their dormancy. Baptisia and umbels and untested treasures that I have yet to get to know.
The cold frames, which will be left ajar for free air movement, are full to bursting with all the plants that need protection from the elements and those that I am now holding back to plant in the spring. A big push to finish the autumn planting has liberated as much as possible to make the most of the latent summer heat in the soil, which will continue to stimulate root activity below ground. The new plantings take the place of plants that I’ve got to know and now see will not be right in the balance. The running Achillea nobilis that took to the sand garden like a sprinter has been dug out and some of the suckers potted on to go in a position where they will be curtailed by defined boundaries. The reliable clump forming A. coarctata, yellow, not cream, but good with the tree brooms, have replaced it. Change is nearly always interesting and refining a planting such a pleasure. Busy hands and your mind simultaneously in the past, the here-and-now and the future.
The last bulbs were put in the ground this week and now that we have had the freeze, we will be protecting the ones that need a little extra help to get through the winter. The fleshy tubers that the species dahlias and the Salvia patens form not far beneath the surface will be mounded with a cairn of garden compost to prevent a hard freeze in the coming months. New mediterraneans in the sand garden will be given a protective hat when a hard freeze threatens, but only then to keep the air moving around their limbs. We made the hats last year from fleece stretched over hanging baskets and they will be brought out from the barn as and when the winter deepens. We walk the path of a minder, steering where we need to be mindful and stepping back where we need to let the season take its course and take the calculated risk that all will be well.
The shift in this last week is a scene change. New volumes liberated by foliage falling away to reveal winter skeletons. The low sunlight illuminating the forms of the grasses still standing. Evergreens that have been lurking all summer and await their moment to become the focus. The wintergreen fennels beginning their push against the tide and the first of the early snowdrops suddenly visible. The tetrapanax hangs limp where just days ago it was staking its territory, but has now admitted defeat. A defeat that is merely sleep and far from final.
Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 23 November 2024
