An Arboreal Ossuary

This morning Jackie continued with her general maintenance work, including

autumn cleaning the greenhouse, and clearing and resetting paths such as the Head Gardener’s Walk.

My minimal intervention was the removal of brambles invading from No. 5 Downton Lane. This, and the amount of weeds piercing the gravel is somewhat reminiscent of our arrival here 1n 2014.

I then wandered around with my camera.

Each of these images bears a title in the gallery,

as do these in the front garden one. Please ignore the rose stems that need sorting out.

This afternoon we drove into the forest.

If these ponies had come for a drink beside Bisterne Close they would have been disappointed because the pool has virtually dried up.

I stopped along Burley Road to investigate the tree work on the fallen giant that has recently added its bulk to the

arboreal ossuary that this area has become.

Early this evening, having been encouraged by my very good blogging friend, Uma Shankar, One Grain Amongst the Storm, and endorsed by another, Laurie Graves, to break up the sequence of material on my three great aunts, I made headway in preparing the next episodes of A Knight’s Tale.

Later, we dined on a repeat of yesterday’s menu, with which Jackie drank the same white wine and I quaffed Colin-Bourisset Fleurie 2019.

71 comments

  1. There is some very interesting looking (and large) bracket fungi near the base of one of those trees. You mention ‘autumn cleaning’ – are your days becoming perceptibly shorter as our are lengthening? I have enjoyed seeing the arboreal ossuary.

  2. I’m guessing the autumn clean you mentioned is a clean and tidy in preparation for the autumn, kind of like spring cleaning the house.

    It’s always a privilege to visit your garden, especially when in full bloom such as now.

  3. Let’s hope there is plenty of summer left before Autumn arrives in full swing –
    Your garden still looks as though it’s full of beautiful summer joy!
    Those ponies would have plenty of water in Sussex – it’s been quite wet recently 🙁

    1. Thanks very much, Emma. We are currently escaping the worst of the rain. My autumn cleaning phrase was because Jackie said she was getting ready for that season 🙂

  4. Always good to see the owls keeping wide-eyed watch. 🙂 Even spotted one by the garage door nasturtiums. 🙂
    Your forest tree photos (in various stages of their lives) are amazing. The fungus, mushrooms, and moss look a bit other-worldly in how and where they appear.
    That sunflower seems to be beaming about it’s tallest flower in the garden status. 😀
    (((HUGS))) 🙂

  5. I love all the color and variety in your garden. The garden view from the rose garden looks like something that would be in a movie.

    Is the “arboreal ossuary” the result of the recent wind storms, or just nature and time?

    1. The very large tree is recent, but others are over time. It is a combination of shallow roots loosened by much rain, then the winds, that bring them down. Thanks very much, Merril

  6. The photos of your garden seem like new perspectives to me, like a dream I had of going through a house and finding more and more rooms I didn’t realize were there -magical, Of course I love the mossy roots, little plants, and bracket fungus all magical in their own ways… and handsome ponies, too.

  7. Your garden has become especially endearing after I have come to a suffocating metropolis. “Arboreal ossuary” is such an apt name!

  8. The 8th and 15th photos remind me of a couple of jigsaws I have done.

    I was thinking “Autumn” but yes, we’ll be into Spring before long. The seasons seem to fly by.

  9. I am a great fan of shelf fungi and you showed some good ones. Are all fallen trees allowed to lie where they fall and hence to decay back into the soil, or are they cleared away to keep things clean and tidy?

      1. Good I am pleased about that. Not only does it rotten to the soil but it provides homes all the little animals and the birds and the insects

  10. The title caught my eye, Derrick. The bones of so many fallen trees become food for new life. It is interesting to see how shallow rooted some of these giants are.

  11. In one of the “fallen tree” photos – I thought there was a man couching – but it looks like some sort of black fungi

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