I used to mope over the advance of fall, lamenting the loss of my beloved garden flowers, morosely plucking the last roses, and generally carrying on as if horticultural Armageddon was just around the corner. I felt as if the Grim Reaper had stepped away from the neighbors’ lavish Halloween display to walk hand in … Read more
The rubber has hit the road in my garden. This past week, the weather people all forecasted the first serious cold snap of the late fall season. That meant that anything tender left outside was doomed. I wasn’t planning on this development, but clearly I forgot to notify Mother Nature of my plans. On the … Read more
When I am alone in my garden in late October I often think about music, especially Ralph Vaughn Williams’ elegiac settings of English folk tunes. My favorite is the haunting “Fantasia on Greensleeves,” because the musical images just seem right for the season of variable weather, early sunsets and mornings when the grass glistens with … Read more
Butterflies delineate the transition from early to late fall. Choice food plants–asters and butterfly bushes—are in bloom in my garden now, in mid September, and Monarchs and skippers dance among the flowerheads. Summer’s swallowtails are mostly gone, but the ubiquitous Cabbage Whites persist. A few stragglers remain from the horde of Painted Ladies that descended … Read more
I need some cheap thrills for my autumn garden. Usually I think about this too late—in mid September at the earliest. This year, however, I am determined to get a jump on the season and the thrills. The kind of thrills I am looking for come from autumn flowering crocus and colchicum. These plants bear … Read more
