Love your Leaves

With the deluge of rain and the hurricane like winds that Scotland has been bestowed this weekend, the leaves are all well and truely down.

For some with small gardens or few trees, leaves are no issue and they are free to enjoy the beautiful colours and fantabulous crunching sounds, but for us and for many others, picking up the leaves is a necessary and slightly tedious autumn task.

For ourselves this is not garden vanity, on the many woodland paths that we have, the layer of wet leaves can get rather slushy, slippery and dangerous for our customers, and on the borders they can form such a dense layer that it can hinder growth of plants. A further side benefit of clearing up your leaves; other than the excellent leaf-mold it creates; is the removal of a means of possible transfer of disease.
- Remember that compost from leaves can be very weed free, but you can sometimes get birch, ash or elder seedlings coming up.


Here are a few guidelines that may help you in your own garden gathering.


* In a small garden, add leaves in layers to your compost heap, with your other autumn gatherings, big clumps will not break down well.

* In a big garden, gather your soft leaves (Elder, Birch, Hazel, Ash..) in their own bin for 12 months, then use as a soil improver or in your own compost mixes. Harder leaves (Oak, Beech, Alder, Holly)will take two years to break down sufficiantly.


*Be careful when raking or hoeing in Autumn, as snowdrops and narcissus are just below the surface and can be damaged.


*Those who had a little autumn forethought can haul in the nets they spread earlier over ponds and add the contents to the compost heap, it is a good idea to re-net, as the wind blow can bring more leaves back in. The rest of us must either drain and clean the pond or get busy with the waders and the rake.
- And while we are on the subject of ponds, plants in established ponds can get lifted and divided, give away the excess, or pot some up and protect them from frost and they will go down a charm at the spring charity sales.


*While clearing up leaves it can be a good time to clean up dead stems, I tend to prefer to do this in late Feb, early March as it gives some winter protection if the weather is hard, but many people prefer now to get it over with.

* With only XX amount of days to Christmas, the fine holly berries may well be a temptation to birds before you are ready for them, so protect some bunches with fleece or net bags.

Scandinavian Invasion

Redwings, Blackbirds, Thrushes and Fieldfairs arrived from Scandinavia over night and we woke to a garden exploding with the movements of birds.

All our trees laden with glowing autumn berries were covered in hungry beaks and i wished i had the forethought to set up a camera to get a time delay sequence as the berries vanished at astonishing speed and branches which were so laden they had been boughed over almost touching the ground in the morning , were by the afternoon free of all their weight and bouncing up to the sky.

I watched the fluttering of wings and tails for hours, on this amazing sunny autumn day, fascinated as they swooped and dived, gorging themselves whilst all the time nervously watching there surroundings and vanishing like lightening whenever they sensed human movement. This made photographing them a wee bit tricky, so i had to take surreptitious blurry shots through the kitchen window.

Venturing outside, they vanished, hiding away in the foliage of the pines and bracken until I had gone by.

I used the scarce sunlight to go round the garden taking some photographs of the last vestiges of autumn colour and found the beautiful Red Admirals had also come back out from their temporary hibernation to bask on the ivy in the sun. If you look closely at the photo above you can see over 15 butterflies - just beautiful!

Autumn arrives at Loch Ness

Standing at the entrance to the garden and looking up into the lush foliage and native woodland, the changing colours of autumn simply make you smile.

There is the the Barbie pink of the Nerine set off by a backdrop of smoldering orange Acer leaves.

The Tulip Tree (Liriodendron) shows off its lemon yellow leaves, contrasting beautifully with the brilliant red berries of the rowan. And above the flashes of harvest yellow Rudbeckia, the shimmering mountain of white Eucryphia covered in dancing Red Admiral butterflies. It is just lovely.

We have had a run of mild sunny days, but with November starting to peek over the horizon it will not be long before the first frosts creep in.

At this time of the year Dad (better known as Don) has been propagating perennials, placing the most tender into the polytunnels for a little added protection.

With the help of our fabulous staff Jo, Shelia and Rebecca, He has also been doing the long and rather tedious annual stocktake, cleaning out some of the summer borders and doing what he calls 'General maintance and reflection'.

It seems to be a wonderfully abundant Autumn, the trees are all hanging heavy with berries, Rowan, Crabapple, the Cotoneaster, Pyrocantha, Hawthorn, Rosehips, Holly, Sloes and Elder have all got great clusters of fruit, still on the bough due to the late arrival of all the migratory birds who have normally stripped the trees bare by this time of the year. Although Daddy said he saw the blackbirds feasting today, so maybe by the end of the week there will be lots of fat birds and light branches.

Hamish has been attending farmers markets all year from Dingwall to Dundee. Next Saturday (the 24th Oct) we will be at a Highland Produce Market in Inverness Falcon Square as part of the Homecoming Scotland celebrations. We will be selling herbs to tie in with the theme of food and drink, and I have been painting terracotta pots with wee herb pictures that I will sell for people to plant their herbs in and keep them in the kitchens.