I know some are upset that summer is over and fall is here, followed too closely by winter, but I am rejoicing. The rain has returned, the weather is cooler, the days are getting shorter and darker and Halloween is coming.
Happy First Day of October.
I don't even mind that the garden is in a state of decline. There's beauty in death (an appropriately Halloweenish state of mind). It appeals to my morbid sensibilities. If Goth had existed when I was a girl, I would have been one.
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| Echinacea seedheads against vibrant purple Asters makes quite a contrast |
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| I like to leave them for the birds |
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| Yellowing Syneleisis foliage |
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| Mukdenia never dies pretty, like in all the internet photos of it; in my garden it just collapses to the ground like an ornamental rhubarb in the heat of summer |
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| Pacific Fire vine maple |
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| An interesting pattern on a Brunnera leaf |
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| Drought-stressed Hosta 'Sum and Substance' leaf |
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| A cup-shaped variegated Hosta leaf has caught a bit of fall detritus |
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| The oak leaves have started to turn |
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| 'Forest Pansy' Redbud leaves collect in a planting pocket of the recycled concrete wall |
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| One redbud leaf caught in the colorful and still vibrant branches of an Arctostaphylos |
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| Turning Peony foliage |
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| The oakleaf Hydrangea flowers are all brown, but the leaves are all still quite green |
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| The fall rains always bring on a flush of fungus |
How do you feel about autumn's many little deaths? There's a Shakespeare quote about sleep -- "
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of
care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt
minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast." I think of autumn (and winter) that way. Something has to balance spring and summer's exhausting exuberance, and feed next year's second chance at getting it right.
