Don't be fooled. Inside this thin coating of sweetness is a fiery core of total insanity.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

The Garden in Decline

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.

Echinacea seedheads against vibrant purple Asters makes quite a contrast

I like to leave them for the  birds


Yellowing Syneleisis foliage


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

Pacific Fire vine maple


An interesting pattern on a Brunnera leaf

Drought-stressed Hosta 'Sum and Substance' leaf

A cup-shaped variegated Hosta leaf has caught a bit of fall detritus

The oak leaves have started to turn

'Forest Pansy' Redbud leaves collect in a planting pocket of the recycled concrete wall

One redbud leaf caught in the colorful and still vibrant branches of an Arctostaphylos

Turning Peony foliage


The oakleaf Hydrangea flowers are all brown, but the leaves are all still quite green

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.