I have been looking around the garden to check on resources for wildlife. It’s quite an untidy garden as creatures don’t appreciate being disturbed by clearing every leaf and twig and cutting down plants as soon as they go into dormant mode.

My hope is that the wonderful crop of berries on the rowans will stay until winter. That will mean the birds have other sources of food for the time being but there will be something else for them to feed on when times get tough and the ground is too frozen for worms and snails.

Insects are lurking in seedbeds at present but there will be few around as the weather gets colder. According to the RSPB, song and mistle thrushes, blackbirds, redwings and fieldfares, find most of their winter food from berries.

The Sorbus vilmorinii  or Vilmorin’s Rowan, pictured here, is apparently named after a 19th century French seed producer who got the seeds from China. The berries start of red and get paler and paler as the weeks go by.

I also have the variety ‘Pink Charm’ which is a new one for me and the berries are quite a blingy colour to start with before fading.

A third mountain ash is Sorbus commixta ‘Embley’, the Japanese rowan, and I’m looking forward to its fiery red foliage and orangey red berries.