The last of the pretty leaves and flowers

Frost has come and turned the nasturtiums to mush, although a few hardy annuals are still clinging on - there are odd blobs of orange and yellow here and there from calendulas and a few tough perennials still with flowers. Overall though the garden knows winter is almost here - although I wish the weeds were less hardy as I don't have the energy to do any tidying up right now. You should see the state of my veg patch (no, I'm not going to show you)! Darn chickweed everywhere. If there was some way to herd the hens in there I would, but when I let them out of the run they are off in the other direction as they like scratching around in the wild woodland areas, and under the conifer trees in amongst the fallen needles. 

Most of the pretty leaves have gone now but I got out with my camera a few times in the last week or so to get these pics before the frost. I've even found a few more insects which I'll save for my next post along with some fungi.

One of my variegated Dogwoods, name forgotten offhand.
I feel I have a great excuse not to bother looking up plant names right now
as my brain has turned to mush. ;-)

Although there are no beech trees growing naturally in my local area, I do have this little stand of about half a dozen near the pond which have been growing slowly over the years - I imagine they came from some bird pooing out the seeds. Some are now about 6 foot tall and they grow in the shade of taller hazels and other trees. I really need to thin them out, but they look so lovely at this time as beech does have pretty leaf colour, and the leaves stay put for a long time. I just don't really know what to do with these trees as there's nowhere to transplant one to allow it to grow to a majestic tree (in about 100+ years' time) without taking out some other trees.... yet another thing I'll worry about some other day or year. ;-)

Little beech trees.

With the pond in the background.

At least I'm assuming they are beech.....!

Back to the Liquidambar, sorry to bore you but it cries out to have its photo taken! :-)

I just couldn't stop taking photos of it. It's been an absolute joy and still has a few leaves left.

Here you may have a glimpse into the veg patch of dewy dill
impersonating a Xmas tree, with purple curly kale and PSB
in the background making good bokeh.

Now for a few flowers - the top is an Abelia which has pretty variegated leaves
but tiny flowers, and bottom are roses growing up against the house walls.

One of the Calendulas, also known as Pot Marigolds.

Corn Marigold peeking through the veg patch fence. Mush now!

Believe it or not the self seeded flat leaf parsley is still flowering!

Nasturtiums at the top, bottom left is Feverfew which is just about clinging on
after the frost, and bottom right I've forgotten again, but it's still fine after the frost!

A close up of inside a Nasturtium, showing those seeds forming which will self seed again next year.

These next two photos are for Ian - they are a couple of my experiments with ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) of my silver birch tree. This was the first time I tried with a zoom lens on so I had a lot of fun(!!) trying to shoot whilst turning the zoom, rather than moving the camera to get the impressionist type of effect. I'm sure I did both as I found it very similar to rubbing my tummy whilst patting my head.... I liked both effects so here they are.

My friend who taught me about ICM (yes, you, Marianne!) does some great effects with Christmas lights, and I've found a house in my village which is all lit up like something out of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (it's actually the house of a retired electrician and it used to be his shop). So one evening I'm going to stop by there to have a bash at photographing it. There are two more houses up a country lane which are lit up American style too - I still find it very amusing to see as this was not a trend when I lived in England (although I understand it's far more popular these days), especially when the houses are in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but some French people seem to enjoy decorating the outside of their houses and as my hospital appointments seem to be early evening these days it gives us something to look at on the tedious journey, as it's dark early now. And on that subject, only 10 more sessions of radiotherapy to go. :-)