In his regular column, Tatton Park’s head gardener Simon Tetlow argues that there is nothing to be glum about in autumn, the season of natural spectacle.

BREEZE blows leaves of musty yellow.

So I sweep them in my sack, Yes Yes Yes it’s my Autumn Almanac.

Oh my poor rheumatic back, Yes Yes Yes it’s my Autumn Almanac.

Ray Davies wrote this in the autumn of 1966, inspired by a hunchbacked gardener in Muswell Hill, London.

It has an air of melancholy like many poems and songs of this season which are infused by inward looking feelings and behaviours. Certainly as gardeners, the falling temperatures and light levels become very pronounced in November.

Late summer colours become a distant memory, as the showers of leaves and showers of heavy rain batter our gardens, awaiting the first frost thatwill see off any colour at all.

Work in the garden at this time of year can be a challenge. Much work is needed but it is often dictated by the weather, continual leaf fall and the constant need to remove rather than replant.

To counter these rather melancholic feelings, nature provides much cheer as usual – it’s a matter of getting out there to appreciate it.

The greatest mass spectacle of them all is our native trees, and when mixed with species from around the world the effects of a good autumn are breathtaking.

Deciduous means ‘falling off at maturity’ and the shedding of leaves by trees and shrubs is a method of reducing stresses of water loss and reduce frost damage.

The best conditions for leaf colouration are often associated with bright sunny days, lengthening cooler nights and light breezes.

As growth slows within the plant in late summer, sugars trapped in the leaves display themselves, as the green pigments – chlorophyll – are not replaced.

These organic pigments, the results of photosynthesis begin to show, carotenoids and anthocynins are effectively our yellows, browns, oranges and reds.

They are the last traces of summer sun if youwill.

The spectacle of autumn should give cheer to those who dread the onset of winter, but to the gardeners it also heralds nature’s other great feat of feeding the soil, and reducing the weeding.

The decomposition of leaves is the single greatest natural soil conditioner, the provision of humid acid to plants is essential for growth and for the formation of soil, sees it as soil glue, or the lifeline between fertilizers and plants.

So to view leaves as a nuisance is missing the point, they are a valuable resource, free compost, mulch, often falling exactly where you want them to be, suppressing weeds directly beneath the plants you want feeding.

So perhaps Ray Davies should not have seen this stooped figure, bagging leaves, as an object of pity.

If Ray was a gardener, and I hope he is, it should have been with envy, collecting a neglected harvest and securing future fertility.

As an end note, questions arose last month that the Ramones have little in common with horticulture. As does the music of the Kinks.

However Aristotelian mimesis says great art imitates life, so it follows that music as a modern art form can make suggestions on horticulture.

As Morrissey wrote: “The leaves fall hard on a humdrum town, the earthworms, they drag them down.” Or maybenot.

Happy gardening.