This is the time of year that Ian our grounds man goes into deep depression. This is not caused by shorter daylight hours, frosty mornings or the lack of grass to cut – it’s the leaves. The trees in the grounds are stunning at the moment, every colour from a pale yellow through orange to a vivid crimson on the Japanese Acers. The problem is that in a very short time they will all fall to the ground  – not in small neat piles but in huge drifts twenty or thirty metres long and up to half a metre deep.
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