Orchard Mown

It's been a rather long and tiring day, but the grass of the orchard is now all cut. It always looks a little sorry for itself at this point (yellow patches, brown patches...patches I missed with Sigrid), but it will soon look reasonable—and will continue to look tidy over the winter, which it wouldn't otherwise. Cutting it back at least once a year also means that the brambles and thistles don't slowly dominate, and the grass stays tidy, rather than gradually forming tussocks, which are a pain underfoot.

Conversely, only cutting it annually means that the non-grass plants have a chance to complete their lifecycle, growing, flowering, and setting seed, which makes for a much more wildlife friendly landscape, and a much prettier one, as we get the succession of flowers and seeds—including the grass, a lot of the varieties of which have pretty flowers, and then good autumn colouring.

The hillside strimmed, and ready for winter (© Ian 2016)

It's been a good autumn for colours: I think the combination of reasonable rainfall, but no high winds, coupled with warm (well, not cold) days and cool (but not freezing) nights has meant that leaves have developed good colours, and not been shed. This is the beautiful moment where the Virginia Creeper (I love the Latin name, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, which tells you everything) has completely turned colour, to bright scarlet, but hasn't lost too many leaves. At the same time, the two acers in front of it, which spend the summer clothed in light green, have turned yellow, and are just getting the red-orange highlights they'll sport until the leaves drop.

It's ephemeral, but for a few days, we get both.

The house in autumn colours (© Ian 2016)