November began with the garden and landscape saturated after over 300 mm of rain fell in October and continued the same theme with several rainbows early in the month, which at least confirmed a bit of sunshine.

The other striking feature was how many leaves were still on trees after bonfire night, and some fabulous autumnal leaf colour, particularly in Acers, continuing well into the month. A consequence of the very mild, though dull October, and a lack of frosts.

It’s been a poor year for waxcap mushrooms, but early in the month a lot more began to appear in all the fields with them particularly numerous in the steep field and upper hay meadow.

The month progressed with no 24-hour dry periods up to the 18th, but also generally very benign temperatures with no frosts, and occasional brighter days. All this meant that not only were our honey bees still active, particularly on the Persicaria vaccinifolia, in short sunny moments

But also the lack of frosts meant that the autumn leaf colour seemed to go on, and on, with Acers and Hydrangeas continuing to shine, as the earlier coloured forms lost their leaves. Although we rarely had sunshine to highlight the scene, such colours glow brilliantly even under grey skies.

At last, on November 25th we had a sharp frost down to minus 7 degrees C which brought a quick end to the extended season of autumnal leaf colour we’ve enjoyed this year. The month ended with another minus 3 degrees C frost on the 30th, and a rainfall total for the month of 227.91mm with just 3 dry days – a fairly typical November for us. Not the worst, but without the fantastic autumn colour, a bit disappointing. The PV inverter record shows the patchy and typically poor light levels throughout the month, with a total of just 102 KWH