(Click on photo to see full size).
The days are shorter, the angle of the sun is switching into autumn mode, the nights are colder. In this deep valley, where the cold comes colder than in the lands above, and thus the frost comes earlier, the blooms I'm seeing now could soon be dying.
Once upon a time, really not so long ago, these were the days when threat of autumn cold at night would send me scurrying to cover all my gardens before nightfall. What changed me in my fever to keep my flowers blooming through as many frosts as possible was actually a long and lovely autumn quite some time ago.
When December came that year, my lawns and gardens still bore their summer vigor. And here I was, surprisingly, still mowing and deadheading and weeding. And I was tired of it!
It was then I fully realized that what I really loved about the beauty of my summer gardens was that they, like life, were temporary; that is what had made their vivid presence precious to me.
In summer, I still don't tire of tending all my gardens and inhaling their aroma. The butterflies and moths and dragonflies and hummingbirds are lovely, lively bonuses that often leave before the frost; they do what nature dictates.
It was then I fully realized that what I really loved about the beauty of my summer gardens was that they, like life, were temporary; that is what had made their vivid presence precious to me.
In summer, I still don't tire of tending all my gardens and inhaling their aroma. The butterflies and moths and dragonflies and hummingbirds are lovely, lively bonuses that often leave before the frost; they do what nature dictates.
But to wake one morning to a garden blackened by the cold is always startling to a gardener. Now I handle it by jumping in and clearing the debris and tucking in perennial plants and shrubs for winter.
And then, with summer duties gone, I have the time to savor all the beauties... or give in to my normal autumn wanderlust... or lie back on my deck and dream of Indian Summers.
To everything there truly is a season. (R.A.T.---Rose About Town---will entertain your own seasonal thoughts at randrmoore@gmail.com)
