IT'S a golden autumn morning in October – a perfect moment in a perfect day. The sun is glinting on the already turning yellow leaves of the silver birch down the garden, the Acer has started changing into its glorious red after a cold night or two, and down the river the hillside has little patches of yellow on the tops of the beech trees. Soon the sound of the deer rutting will echo across the river valleys.

In the distance the patchwork quilt of fields has started to change colour, gone are the golds of the crops and now there are red browns of newly ploughed and planted fields. Up on the hill the bracken which has grown into enormous triffid like plants this year has started moving into its autumn shades of orange and yellow and collapsing in on itself. The year and the season move on.

Many people start to tidy their gardens now putting them to bed for the winter. But stay your hand, and leave some part of your patch as a wilderness. Animals, bugs birds and bees need food, shelter and warmth to get them through the tough and cold times and, for many, your garden is the perfect place to over winter - in fact it's their wildlife haven. So try and make a space for nature this season.

Empty stalks make good homes for lacewings and ladybirds that eat the aphids gardeners love to hate.

Hedgehogs need a pile of leaves to hibernate in, and a woodpile can provide food and shelter for all manner of bugs and beasts. Seed heads left can look sculpturally cool in the garden as well as having a second purpose as homes or food.

The crop of fruits and berries this year is patchy but there are other things to keep the body and soul together in our gardens evening primrose heads, rowan berries, pyracantha, hips, haws, beech mast and acorns if there are any left. We may not eat them but wildlife can and we can enjoy watching the wildlife. Along the roadsides the myriad of thistle plants may look an untidy mess with their fluffy seed heads but Goldfinches love them and can find a good feed on the seeds and, what more lovely a sight than a Charm of Goldfinches alighting on the thistle tops and swaying in the wind as they devour natures' bounty. So get out and enjoy the sunshine and changing colours of the season but wrap up well – there's a whisper of winter in the cold wind that blows to accompany the sun.

Mary Rowberry

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