Say goodbye to those remaining tawny and copper leaves as they are whisked off the trees by storm Abigail. In fact strong winds last weekend have already lightened the load considerably, revealing the bare bones of many of the local trees and hedgerows. Walking with the dog has felt completely different since the winds. I’ve been able to see what Sadie has been up to in the set-aside copses along the path.
In fact she has been in seventh heaven with all the windfall apples on the ground and sloes on the lower branches showing up plainly (sometimes I wonder whether Sadie was a fruit bat in another life).
We can see beyond our boundary hedge again, so we could see that Monday morning’s sunrise was very beautiful and made the leafless damson trees appear as if they were on fire. Sadly, we didn’t actually see the sun though and soon it was a dull grey again.
One nice thing about bare branches is that you can see wildlife more easily. For instance, there is quite alot of frantic bird activity going on, the hedgerows are being stripped of their fruits and we can see the birds fly up en masse just ahead of us as we walk along the alleys and footpaths. There are noticeable flocks of goldfinch and tits (usually mixed blue, great and long-tailed tits) gathering.
As of this week, redwings seem to have arrived back from their summer jaunts. I haven’t seen any fieldfares yet though.
Meanwhile, in the village, there seems to be a lot of tree surgery going on. It’s a combination of trees shutting down for the winter and people battening down for harsher weather I suppose. We’ve nearly finished chopping down our self-seeded cherry (too close to the house – 9m tall and <2m from the house wall) and dealing with the pieces. Small leafy stuff has been ground down and composted, branches of medium thickness have been woven into our boundary to bulk it up, in a vain attempt to keep out the muntjac deer, and the large material has been set aside to be chopped up for the wood burner. Whilst busy chopping up the wood I remembered a design for rustic reindeer that they used last year in the Christmas (sorry for using that word) display at Wimpole and I thought that the cherry wood, with its glossy red bark, would look wonderful used for that. So this week I have distracted myself from the nights drawing in so early by moving into the garage and cutting, whittling and drilling to see if I could make some too. Here are the results:
Not too bad and they will certainly do for decorating the front porch. When we chain-saw the remaining trunk I might make a full-sized one, with antlers.
On a smaller scale than the trees, the plants in the border are being cut back to their bare bones too. One of my favourite transformations every year are the bracts of Bells of Ireland (Moluccella laevis) as they skeletonize.
They look like the conceptual diagrams of the gravity wells of black holes. I can imagine insects being sucked down (OK probably crawling) into the centre.
The Bells have nearly achieved their lacey patterns for this year and the winds have been tearing whole brittle stalks off the plant and throwing them about the garden. Any needed for decorations should be collected quickly before they are spoilt.
One final herbaceous skeleton structure that stands out for me, again because it looks like a conceptual drawings, are the spent flowering spikes of Heuchera that are dead-ringers for some kind of long chain chemistry molecule.
What chemical do you suppose that represents? One day I’ll take a decent picture of them to show the structure more clearly.
Have you got any skeletons in your garden?
Such lovely images giving simple pleasure and all the more essential in the light of news from Paris.
Yes, it is too shocking. Our thoughts and support are with Paris.
Lovely skeleton photos. Just shows that if you can leave your plants alone after they have finished flowering you may well be rewarded with something else both interesting and lovely to look at. I have no skeleton photos to show you today but I have just posted a couple of little pictures on my Calendar page for December specifically for you Allison. They were taken at Aira Force in Cumbria last December outside the National Trust Shop – thought they might inspire you!
Here’s the link. http://countrygardenuk.com/calendar-2/december/
Ha, excellent. I love the nose. Interesting that they are Trust wide.
What fantastic photos. I love the skeleton Bells of Ireland and I am very impressed with your reindeer.
Thanks, if only my hands were not covered in cuts now! I grow the Bells every year just to see them transform. They seem to do it so quickly.
Wow, those Bells of Ireland are quite something! And that second photo–sigh–just gorgeous!
Now that I am up to see the sun rise, I can say that there have been a few spectacular ones since the beginning of November
I think your reindeer are darling! Very clever of you, I wouldn’t know where to start with a project like that. The skeleton flowers are very beautiful. Nature is a wonder, isn’t it?
Thanks, but I was only copying them. I do like the look of the cherry wood bodies with its speckled reddish bark though. I hope that we will always be able to appreciate nature’s diversity.