It’s grey and very wet here today but this week has been fabulous with frosty starts to sunny days. I’ve been collecting leaves again. We have mature trees in the garden which usually shed their leaves in autumn. In 2016 our Oak trees held onto most of their leaves until just before Christmas. Usually the autumn gales blow many of them away. But this time it’s down to me to clear them from the borders. In places they lay 15cm / 6 inches deep so I’ve been raking up barrow loads of them to make leaf mould. I’ll add it back to the borders when the leaves decompose. There’s nothing like a spot of gardening on a dry January day to get back in touch with nature.
Mahonia x media ‘Charity’
So here we are again. It’s December. It’s cold. We’re putting our winter woolies on at last. The garden has changed in the past few weeks. There are plenty of leaves to collect and the oak trees are still decorated with golden leaves so I’ll probably be raking up leaves all December too.