This week’s been a busy one. The autumn leaves viewed from my desk are looking stunning, and the cat has found a particularly unhelpful spot to sit.

I’ve had more time at the desk than outside, this week, but I did make time for tea & cake in the garden on a sunnyish day – it may be the last chance for that this year…

This is the garden pond that I watch from that desk. Above it, the copper beech is losing its leaves from the top down, and the solar powered fountain doesn’t come on very often anymore. It needs direct sunshine, and we’ve got less of that now it’s autumn. There’s still a little bit of floral colour, but not a lot.

Our back garden faces north and slopes downwards, and so does not get much sun in the winter months. This is probably why the lawn is always dewy and damp in the early morning – even in really dry spells. The garden has a tendency to be damp, and so the moss thrives. Thankfully, we quite like moss.

There’s a good lot of it on the witchhazel, which has lost all its leaves since last week and is developing lots of buds…

Nasturtiums are growing well in their spot by the back fence, and I love these resilient late season blooms. These plants are all regrown from seeds of last year’s patch, started from a few handful of seeds I had left over from the year before. I collected a few of that generation’s seeds indoors, and scattered them around here in the spring. I think a lot of these will have self-seeded here too all by themselves too.

They’re exceptionally jolly and cheerful and I’ll collect more seeds and plant them out around the front as well next year… Cheap, cheerful, edible and with fantastic colour, I believe every garden can use a few more nasturtiums.

The strawberry basket is looking well. This was a quite successful way to grow strawberries, and it’s good to have them raised up to catch more sun and avoid the pests. However, the strawberries in the greenhouse did even better.

I like the look of this combo, but I think I’ll plant this up with spring bulbs and put those strawberry plants elsewhere next year.

This week, like I said, I’ve been busy. However, I managed to combine a forest school meeting with tea and cake in the garden, and it was very pleasant to be sat at this cosy table. It was ‘coats on’ weather, and the sunshine didn’t last, and it felt like that might well be the last chance to sit out for tea this year…

We bought this table with wedding gift money, and it’s been with us for 8 years and three gardens. Husband recently weeded and tidied the patio, and we’ve installed a replacement disco ball – the last one perished after a decade of dedicated service to sparkles.

Finally, here’s a look at the fuschia. We cut this right, right back in spring and it’s responded well and its still putting out some colourful flowers. Now I’m indoors I can see that this is dreadful picture. I snapped it this morning in poor light.

Let’s pretend it’s an intentional arty effect.

From a fuzzy fuchsia to ‘a better future for our forests’ as I’d like to share with you what I’ve been working on – this week and over the last couple of years.

‘Wood for the Trees’ is a series about the future of our forests. I’ve been working on this with my boss, sawmill manager Tom Barnes, and my forest school colleague & filmmaker Charly Le Marchant. The series looks at hopes and fears for the future of our woodlands. We met woodland experts from a range of different perspectives – from large scale forestry to small woodland restoration. We met Chartered Foresters, a Tree Sister, Research scientists, Silviculturists, Rewilders and Regenerative Farmers, and we asked them all for one policy suggestion for UK government.

Here they are:

That’s it from me this week. For more garden highlights, visit the Propagator’s blog and search the hashtag #SixOnSaturday

I’m going to have a nice long bath and not do very much today.

Have a super weekend and a smashing week.

J x