It must be November now since we are bombarded with non stop Christmas adverts on the tele without even having had the chance yet to stow away this year's Halloween gear and costumes away in the attic and with bonfire night cinders still smoldering and smoke still hanging around in fields and farmland, is this another example of raging inflation and the shrinking of the year into an ever smaller annual cycle of hype and spend?
A final visit of the year to Ms Coleridge's garden year poem informs us that 'dull November brings the blast then the leaves are falling fast.'
Leaves are certainly falling thick and fast and in abundance in the back lanes and byways of the Chilterns where Izzy has not been slow in corralling her family into country walks wading through banks of the vividly coloured and multi shaped harvest of leaves reminds them of paddling through shallow water at the seaside earlier this summer. However, far from being yet another unsubtle method of getting fresh air around screen bound children, these walks have an underlying purpose aimed at spotting and collecting selected leaves suitable for making up a wreath for the front door.
Normally at this time of year, Izzy would be reminding us of the value of composting your collected leaves from the garden, or better still hoeing them into the ground for the worms to do their soil enrichment routine, but before doing that, she wants to show you her brilliant home made leaf wreath (tongue twister not intended!) - see photos below. Can you spot the ladybird who couldn't resist getting involved?
Still on the subject of leaves, but turning to the indoor types of leafy houseplant which are often overlooked, unloved, un-watered and forgotten about until on the verge of collapse and extinction. So give them a bit of TLC and at the same time multiply your collection by taking leaf cuttings and propagating them in jam/marmalade/coffee or whatever jars and take pleasure in watching new life develop in the form of spindly white roots growing before your very eyes.
Select a healthy looking leafy stem of the plant and locate a root node from which any future growth will emerge. Then sever this from the plant with a sharp, clean knife or pair of scissors, just below the node and strip the leaves above this point before inserting it into your jar of room temperature fresh clean water. Place the jar in a warm place and freshen up the water every few days. After three or four weeks you should have a mass of new white roots appearing under the node when you can then, with great care, pot up in fresh compost preferably dipping the roots into some hormone rooting powder first to give the new plant a better chance of survival in its new surroundings.
You can use the same method with your geraniums by cutting a 150mm length of stem just below a leaf joint, stripping off surrounding leaves and inserting into your jam jar making sure that the water level covers the joint then follow the steps above and pot up into fresh, clean compost and whilst not every one of your attempts will be successful, you should have some survivors to help ease the cost of next year's evermore expensive supermarket or garden centre visits.
If you're interested in this, you might also like a new product we have just got in stock -the 'Bottle Garden'. This uses hydroponics to allow you to grow herbs in water instead of having pots with soil around the kitchen. You can use this easy system with any jars, bottles, tins you have to hand. The kit, which takes just 5 minutes to set up, includes:
-recycled coir Grow Pods,
-nutrient-rich Plant Fuel,
-premium basil seeds for multiple harvests.
