The rotten ring.

It was a hot midsummers day and I was at one of my more random regular gardens and this was certainly turning out to be another regular random day there. It was a small narrow terraced city garden, planting down each side and a long patio through the middle and I was struck by the scent of death as soon as the front door opened; the smell only got stronger the further I went through the house. The lady living there at the time seemed to be unaware of the stench filled air but she did mention in passing that there seemed to be more flies than usual in the garden.

Stepping out into the garden I disturbed a cloud and I mean cloud of flies. The ground and air thronged with large black buzzing bodies and all around the edge of the patio grew a thick dense mass of fungal strands. A huge hairy rotting ring of bird seed. The woman who lived there had a thing for feeding the birds and went out daily to refill the feeders, if there was any feed left in them she simply tipped the seed on the ground for the birds as well. In a garden no bigger than 300ft square she had about 10 large feeders, that's a lot of excess seed to pour away especially in a city garden with limited bird life.

For two weeks during a typical British summer (a mix of rain and hot sun) she had dutifully feed the birds and ground, it didn't take long for the damp warm ground to become a fungus feeding ground rich in nutrients and spores. For five hours I cleared a two inch thick and three inch wide layer of rotting sinking bird food from a hot narrow garden whilst trying to explain to client why she might have been slightly over doing it on the supporting wildlife front.

There's a balance to every job and this certainly balanced out all the idyllic days of garden work.

Christmas warmth

It is early December in the Forest of Dean, currently the thermometer says sixteen degrees, the plants are still growing, the pests and diseases are still proliferating and I am still working in gear I usually wear in mid autumn. Apparently Christmas is soon and all we've had for winter weather is one light frost a few weeks ago, it certainly doesn't feel at all “tis the season”. In another week it'll be time for me to start knuckling down to making wreaths and table decorations whilst the garden is crying out for a break but until the temperatures takes a serious tumble that looks to be a long way off.

The problem is that there is a multitude of jobs that need to be done yet the job list is being constantly reordered, lawns are still growing but now the ground is too wet to mow on, leaves still cling to plants that usually have entered their winter prune time. The garden is confused and it is the gardeners job to try and soothe this turmoil especially when at the back of our minds is the ever present fear that the cold could suddenly descend before the garden has had chance to prepare itself. On the plus side however it does mean certain job windows have been enlarged, planting of bulbs and the relocation of shrubs would normally be best don't before the end of November but the further warm spell means extra time to catch up. I for one buy too many new bulbs every year and every year am racing the season to get them all in, more care does need to be taken as the ground is so damp it would be all too easy for rot to set in but a generous handful of grit in the base of each hope should sort that.
True to form the garden will always right itself in the end and you can be sure that spring will be here before you know it. Personally I love a good cold snap, I know where I am when huddling against the elements in multiple layers, chilled fingers sticking out my gloves, breath crystallising in the air in front of me, daydreaming of the hot shower and cuppa waiting for me at home.

Thankfully the Forest reacts more to the strength of light than overall temperature and after giving us a stunning autumnal display is now bedding down before the bud burst of new growth next year, looking to the forest floor there is still plenty of signs of life and the birds and animals are making full use of the extra food available. The mud is plentiful leaving us footprints of the wildlife we don't usually see, boar and deer are clearly roaming far and wide at the moment, a little too far and wide when looking at the state some village greens and verges have been left in. As always it is an absolute joy to be out walking amongst the trees, I love the Forest and would gladly spend every day in it but for now I have to fuel my arboricultural addiction with mini strolls through the woodland gardens at work.

So though the season may be all mixed up it's still a joy to be out whether catching up on jobs in the garden or filling your lungs with the breath of the trees.

Weather

Across the valley sweeps,
Rain clouds within their keep.
A storm of wind and rain to seep,
Into this gardener deep.

Dref continued

Slipping from the house as first light begins to grip the world we quietly follow the track leading up onto the mountainside, with the world still waking around us we can almost feel the mists of eden swirling around our feet as we trudge onwards and upwards into a landscape still fresh with the nights dew. A winding path through half cleared forest leads to a gate, a further track and then suddenly a split in the undergrowth appears to our right, a slimmer track halfway between an animal thoroughfare and a nearly dried up mountain stream leads onto the exposed expanse of bog, heathland and scraggy clumps of stunted trees. Nature here keeps close to the ground to prevent it being weather beaten off into a non existence, with autumn coming earlier this far north the leaves have already left the trees but were likely taken by the wind and cast to the valley below before they ever reached the foot of the tree. Leaf litter here is made up of whatever small cast offs the heathers make mixed with the droppings and remains of the animals that call this home (we found three sheep skeletons on this trip), the growing medium is hard here but centuries old and rarely disturbed, a narrow band of rich peaty top soil sits on rock and is held in place by moss and heather roots. Trees bore their roots down amongs cracks to thick seams of nutrients whilst plant and beast hunches down to avoid the winds and rain that seem to roll across in a never ending choreographed dance of cloud and sun. Even in this day and age it’s good to know such wildness is still on our doorstep, relatively speaking.

Heading on we pass through a bog and feel the landscape change beneath our feet, the softness of the moss makes way for the tenacity of the mountain heathland, tough dark green foliage clusters around our boots, dragging off peat and mud to savour later. Great rocks rise from the ground the earth bound icebergs where you know there is even more below the surface.

There are many things which impress me when out on the mountainside, the way the sheep traverse the land with relative ease, the endless drystone walls that crisscross this part of he country running for miles of incredibly tough terrain. One thing however which always strikes me and in many ways will leave me dumb with its perfection, is the balance of nature. From the full scale of the mountain and valley laid out before us to the tiniest microcosm of lichen and moss living in the cracks of fence posts. It’s all so beautiful and as a gardener I feel truly humbled by it. This is what Capability Brown understood. There are pockets of incredible detail and beauty all over the countryside around us yet the whole landscape runs seamlessly. Whether looking at the rich verdant fields below or the deep purples, greens and grey of Cadair rising above us, it’s all so perfect.

I hear it first.
A distant roaring that soon comes pouring over the hillside opposite.
I watch as wildlife is scattered, tree torn at and leaves strewn as though dust.
I watch as it comes crashing up the hill towards me.
As it first encounters the garden.
In its crazed state it doesn't even notice.

The garden does.
The plants bend under the ferocity of the onslaught.
Clouds of leaves ripped from the remaining canopies litter the sky.
I am under seige, cowering behind a wall as the garden is beaten by blows so great even the ground seems to shudder.
Then it is gone.
A silence and stillness descends.

The wind moves on.

Unseasonal season.

It’s nearly mid November and it’s currently 18.5° outside, I’m raking leaves in a t-shirt and the lawn needs another cut, it’s weird, it shouldn’t be this warm! We’ve so far had a stunning autumn and living in such a forested area I’ve been able to appreciate it every part of every day but by now I would be expecting to see the first frosts and signs of the garden heading towards its so winter slumber.
The garden needs a proper winter, we haven’t had one for the last two years and without a good hard frost pests and disease continue to prosper.

Dref Gerrig

There is a place not too far from here. Just three hours of winding Welsh roads door to door.
There is a village far from any other where a road becomes a lane, the lane a track, the track a woodland drive, the drive a cottage yard.
There is a cottage on the lower slopes of a Welsh mountain, quiet, secluded, home for four autumnal days.

This is Dref Gerrig an old basic farmhouse perched between forest and an ever rolling landscape on the feet of Cadair Idris. So far from anything that at night the sky is emblazoned with stars and by day you’d swear you could hear the slow munch of lichen dissolving stone and creeping endlessly on. It’s rare for me to leave the garden for anywhere other than forest but this mountain and landscape are something special, plus it does have some rather wondrous woodland looming up behind the house. Or did.

After a steep, narrow drive up from the village below I turn the bend expecting to see the first tentative glimpse of the cottage down a tree shrouded track only to discover a one sided expanse of sky. The forestry commission have obviously been hard at work clearing old pine plantings from the hillside, what was once dark and deeply mossy is now open, sunlit and rather daunting. Before one always had the feel of being enveloped by the land as though the woodland was physically reaching out to hug the cottage to its mountainous bosom. Now Dref sits exposed on one side with the very peak of Cadair rising up in the distance behind. Thankfully most of the broadleaf trees still stand including a stunning Beech standing sentinel next to the cottage and walking over where the woods had once stood I could soon spot the new seedlings which enriched by the sudden access to sun and rain were speeding skyward. Rowan, Oak, Beech and Larch were dominate but it didn’t take long to discover a diverse array of plant life that would become the new woodland. Give it a few hundred years.

As phenomenal as all this was there was one thing remaining. One thing that was needed to complete the perfection of this moment in time and the sudden crunch of tyres on gravel announced the arrival of it. My brother. Now much can be written about this man and how who I am now, owes much to his influence in my formative years. My love and innate fascination in nature was at the very least bolstered by him if not inspired in the first place. I’ve no doubt that without him I wouldn’t be the gardener I am today (the lovely irony is that he wouldn’t be the gardener he is without my influence either).

I can lose myself in this landscape so easily. The seemingly endless drystone walls heaving with thick verdant mosses, lichens of increasing complexity, forest glades perfectly lit by the split rays of the sun. A landscape such as this has been perfectly crafted by nature for hundreds of years, Dref itself is at least three hundred years old. As a gardener I am always amazed at what nature can achieve but here I have to not only take my hat off but throw it away never to be put back on because here is a landscape that would bring Capability Brown himself to his knees.

I will save the tales of our adventures here for another time. I’m aware of much to be told and the ever increasing length of this blog alone. I will therefore leave you will a few images of this most special of places.