After the fall...

There’s just enough time to admire the crunchy colours of autumn before Toby turns the fallen leaves to good use

- Toby Buckland

AT its best, autumn colour is a feast for the eye, arriving in a super-sized serving and falling at once in easy-to-sweep and generous heaps across the garden. This year, though, thanks to weeks of windy weather, the fall has come in fits and starters like a 10-course taster menu. And if the mature beech tree that stands like a sentinel over the wheelie bins at Buckland Castle is anything to go by, this autumn has been messier than a dropped amuse-bouche.

Thankfully, weeks of leaf sweeping have finally come to an end, and it’s time to make use of the piles by turning the coppery leaves into soil improver.

Deciduous trees like my beech drop their leaves for good reason. Primarily, it’s their way of protecting their stores of chlorophyll – the green compound that transforms sunlight into energy. For all plants chlorophyll is expensive to make, and as trees draw it safely back into their branches, revealing the red and yellow pigments below, not only is it protected but it also thickens the sap, increasing the tree’s tolerance to cold.