Autumn may be the most wonderful time to enjoy the effects of light in the garden. The sun is lower and softer, and the result can be amazing.
We have anything but a flat garden. It does give visitors a good initial overview, and we are sheltered from the worst winds by virtue of a huge ridge behind us – to the south.

This is a view into a small valley, rising to the woods at the far side. The ridge behind the garden is to the right, and to the south.
So my photographer husband complains about it every year. Photographers like flat gardens. They may be boring (flat gardens) but any available light will be there, and light is what photographers need and enjoy. It’s why they get out of bed at unbelievable times when the rest of us are still asleep. Anyway, having a huge ridge above us to the south means that in winter, when the sun is low, we can lose all sunshine for two weeks or more. And for quite a while it is filtered through trees on the horizon.
You need that sunshine if you’re going to enjoy the best of any snow or frost. Snow without sun is rather flat, and like flat gardens… boring. And it’s not only for photographs that that matters. It’s rather dull and disappointing for a spectator or snowman too. (sorry, ‘snow person’?)
You can see some of that effect here, where the sun has got into the woods:

The light in the woods shows how comparatively dull the frost on the hedges looks.
So, it’s a bit of a shame in a way that a light lover like me has this dead time in winter. But in autumn and spring the sun reaches over that horizon and lights up the garden in a glory that summer never quite manages. Summer sun is rather too harsh.
When we open the garden we watch the weather forecast anxiously, dreading rain most of all. Rain is a bit of a killer to garden delight. But really so is bright sunshine, which can make it hard to really see and appreciate a garden. Never mind that at too high a temperature garden visiting can be exhausting. I hate heat!
Our openings are basically dictated by the times when people expect to visit a garden. In the UK that’s mostly Sunday afternoon. Mornings and afternoons during the week are close followers for groups – except at Veddw, where we charge extra to any party which tries to get us out of bed early. Yet, apart maybe from dawn, which I have no experience of, the evening is the time when the light is most likely to be glorious. It is evening light which gives us these amazing reflections:

Photograph courtesy of Charles Hawes. This is evening light – paying visitors sadly miss this.
And autumn, when we’re also closed, may be the very best time, the time when adding sun to autumn colour can truly take your breath away.

Vitis coignetiae doing its thing.

Sun spotlighting.
And look what sunlight can do to ornamental grasses in their late season colour:

Miscanthus Malepartus, Veddw, copyright Anne Wareham
But its not always about those glowing oranges and reds. It’s light which does this for us too:
Light is our greatest partner of all in the garden. No matter what we do, however well we employ our resources and create scenes of splendour and delight, it is light that will transform it all into beauty. The world is rather dull in our country until someone turns the light on. Then suddenly there is joy and beauty.

These ferns suddenly came alive….
It’s quite hard to know what to do with all this when you have it. It can be quite overwhelming. I can look up from my desk and see sun pointing out the glow of a tree, as demanding as any teacher requiring an instant response. Or Pampas Grass suddenly illuminated:
It makes me want to wave my arms about, jump up and down or rush around mindlessly. I even take pictures from the car (as a passenger only..)

Soon these beeches will go orange…!!
And would I have taken this picture of that bloke pruning a holly unless the light in the trees had set me alight?
I can love light in winter even with no sun the garden:

The Reflecting Pool melting…
and I love those ominous skies with light breaking through brooding cloud in spring:

A storm may be on the way?
And when the sun shines behind a flower you suddenly see it quite differently:

Thalictrum aquilegifolium
I love the meadow in the early evening:
And in the meadow, the globes capture all the light in the sky, so that they even glow in moonlight. I haven’t taken photographs in moonlight though.
BUT the sun can be dangerous, even in Wales. So sadly this is a picture I daren’t replicate, having caused smouldering with a crystal ball once:
Is autumn maybe the absolute best?? Sorry, visitors – you’d have to book a special to see ours. But you probably have plenty of your own. Some countries and climates do much better than we do. What a treat.
The downside is that that low autumn sun makes the windows look filthy.
I love your post on light Anne and some of your images are truly stunning. You clearly have an artists soul as well as gardeners. Thank you for this beautiful sharing.
PS: I am sharing this post on my Facebook page Next Wednesday.
All of these pictures are so pretty! And you’re totally right–fall light makes even my tiny city garden mysterious and amazing.
I love light on an early evening in a city, when everyone adds their own house lights to dusk….
omg, what glorious photos! Love the light and what is does.
I know – and it sends you out with a camera too…..
Oh, I so agree. Every sunny evening lately I go crazy over the sun hitting the trees and shrubs. It is just so golden. I can never get enough of it.
Exactly.
It’s a lovely, upbeat “rant” that lifts the reader, especially this fellow photographer, higher and higher, only to bring the mood crashing down at the end. Is that to make it fit the meaning of a rant? It is a very nice rant, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms.
Ah…. that’s life?
I, too, get a little crazy when the sideways light of sunrise and sunset make their magic in the garden and the forest. Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden. Loved your closing sentence, because I was just looking through my filthy windows while admiring late afternoon light. Solution – step outside to admire the view. When one has a garden, who has time for washing windows?
We have two dogs, and large windows in the front living room. When I come home in the evening, I can see Wally standing on his hind legs on the sofa, looking out at me, and I cringe at seeing the TV inside, reflecting the incredibly dirty windows caused by doggy breath/drool. But I’d rather have two dogs than pristine windows. And seeing my front garden crowned by Wally’s cute head welcoming me home (and appearing to also be taking the garden in) makes me happy.
Pristine windows and all the housework that accompanies them can go hang when there are important things to attend to……
You’re spot on – outside is the place to be, chasing the light round the garden. The windows will come to no harm!
Being a photographer also, I can totally appreciate your comments on the importance of light. Your garden is spectacular, but the thought which keeps coming to mind is, do you hire a professional at topiary or do you and your husband have his and her hedge clippers? If the latter, how do you ever find time to stand still and wonder at the beauty around you?
We have help one day a week from spring to autumn. We sadly wore one out: his shoulders went, https://veddw.com/general/jeffs-gone/
but happily we have found replacement.
I have no idea how we would cope without the help. Never worried about it 34 years ago when we began, with two fields!
wonderful post. I feel enlightened by it.
Hope it brightened your day…..
Amazing garden and pics, thanks so much for sharing. I too love the light, not sure how to photograph it, sometimes it works sometimes not! I do look forward to autumn so much with all the colourful leaves and cones of flowers blackening off, it is a totally different garden. They make me stop in my tracks and stare. Winter is a wonder too with the bark of the apple trees turning black, quite the site for me when everything is in a foot of snow! Enjoying your column from Canada! Have a great day!
My theory is, if you take five thousand photos one will be amazing. My husband (a professional) approaches it differently – see https://veddw.com/general/garden-photography-a-form-of-worship/ !
It’s not uncommon for my husband and I to be in the house in the evening, when one of us happens to look out the window and shout, “Look at the light!” We both head outside with our phone cameras, or he with his fancier camera, and start clicking away. Or sometimes, we just admire it without trying to capture it on screen. Sometimes it’s just hard to make the camera see what we see with our eyes. At least for me with my phone camera it is. But that’s okay. I’ve come to the realization that just enjoying it with my eyes is a valuable treat.
Yes – I sometimes feel bad about photographing rather than enjoying, so make a point of trying to make sure to do both. We too get a glimpse (usually of an amazing sky) and rush out. Charles never takes such pictures though, only me!
“yet apart from the dawn, which I have no experience of,”. Made me snort with laughter. And I agree whole heartedly with “I hate heat”. Which is why my garden languishes in late summer when what little energy I have is focused on the vegetable garden and why I tell my husband he is nuts to think about retiring to Phoenix where one of the offspring lives.
You’re right – do not go and live in it. Don’t even holiday in it, is my view…..
You have to be on the ball to capture changing autumn light. By the time you rush inside for a camera it has altered. There’s a lot to be said for just sitting somewhere and enjoying the moment.
Although you/Charles seem to have captured some striking colours.
You have to be on the ball to capture changing autumn light. By the time you rush inside for a camera it has altered. There’s a lot to be said for just sitting somewhere and enjoying the moment.
Although you/Charles seem to have captured some striking colours.
O, well, I do a lot of sitting, phone by my side. Usually reading or writing. Then I look up……
Charles sometimes goes out hunting the pictures. He does it all properly…….
As a fellow gardener who battles a south side ridge, I sympathiz(S)e Ann. Light (when I can get it), grasses and autumn color – these form the basis of most of my pics this time of year. Charles’ are absolutely glorious. -MW
Only one of those pictures was Charles’s, you know……
Our ridge has a good side – it gives some shelter from the prevailing south west winds. (It’s that long!) Hope you can find some merit in yours too, but maybe not in autumn and winter and….
Wow; lovely!
Thanks!
You site has all those wonderful shapes.
In my mind they more than make up for any lack of light in winter
Inger Knudsen
Yes – we are incredibly lucky.
It was the light that did it!
I really like your pictures, they look so natural and all the scenery will be different with the light!!
Thank you!