Nest & Nurtured

October morning in a Somerset garden. The mist has not lifted yet but she is already outside, secateurs in hand, breath visible in cold air. The roses are finished, their hips swelling where blooms once were. The dahlias blackened by first frost lie collapsed against their stakes. Everything exuberant has retreated. This is when the garden shows what it truly is, stripped of summer's abundance, revealing the bones beneath. The yew hedge stands dark and solid.

 The holly glitters with berries no bird has touched yet. Teasel seed heads catch drops of condensation, geometric and perfect in their decay. These are not reluctant survivors but plants evolved for precisely this: short days, long nights, frost settling in hollows, Atlantic gales. They do not merely endure winter. They inhabit it. She has been learning this slowly, through three autumns spent observing rather than intervening, through winters watching which plants hold their form whilst others collapse into mulch. The garden's true character emerges now. Not in May's explosion but in November's patient architecture. This is when you discover whether you have built sanctuary or merely arranged decoration.