It is the Best of Times!

It was a beautiful day, bright and warm and without the chilling breeze of recent days. It was a perfect afternoon for gardening and as I worked – gently, I might say – I thought that this really is the best of times in the garden. The pace of plant and grass growth has slowed down, even the weeds are in their off-season and are not making demands, all in all everything is moving at a gentler rhythm and there is time to simply enjoy the garden.

A perfect day for gardening.

And a beautiful finish to the day: a sliver of a moon with Venus low in this evening’s sky and Gingko biloba almost bare of foliage.

That, at times, almost manic busyness of earlier in the year, the constant grass-cutting, weeding, staking of plants, dead-heading and all else has now passed and we are into a quieter phase. There is no great rush to get things done at the moment for now plants are dormant and will wait for our attention while earlier in the year they demanded it, at times, immediately. I am in the process of cutting down herbaceous plants and tidying up the beds around the garden at the moment and conditions are perfect for it so it is a very relaxing and enjoyable activity with no rush, no demands, just doing something I enjoy doing. What could be better!

Trees looking well at the moment:

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Along with that, the garden actually looks well at the moment. Of course, it is different to the high colour of summer, but autumn and early winter have their own appeal, their own colour and much that is very attractive and beautiful. Now is the turning time of the year, a year of growing coming to an end while the next has already begun. There really is no stop to the gardening year but this period is a relaxed one to be enjoyed to the full.

Some other things which caught my eye today – it isn’t all work in the garden; there is always time to walk around with the camera:

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