slideshow: bits of beauty before the fall burn

IHAVE BURNOUT, BUT THE GARDEN’S ABOUT TO SET ITSELF ON FIRE. Even before it does, though—before it colors up like last year or maybe better with all the rain—I find bits of beauty here and there, among the shagginess and decay, like the moments in this little show.

Maybe it’s Mercury retrograde that has me (a Gemini—one of the signs most heavily influenced by the antics of Mercury) plum tuckered out; maybe it was just this strange season of lots of wet and no heat. Maybe it’s the book I’m 200ish pages into writing that needs to be 300. But don’t worry; I’ll make it to the finish line on all fronts. I’ve been on an amazing new diet with my sister and my best friend that’s making a big difference. Onward; but first a little walk together, yes?

Click on the first thumbnail to start the show, then toggle from slide to slide using the arrows next to each caption. Enjoy.

: It’s September, time to rally and ready myself for fall cleanup, but even when I get in the mood and start hacking stuff down, the frogboys just sit around pretending nothing’s happening, never offering to lift a webbed finger. Still as can be, sitting right in the same spot he always did, but (thanks to me) minus the leafy cover.

: Everywhere there are signs of harvest bounty, like fruits and nuts, including these seedpods gathered beneath Magnolia ‘Butterflies.’

: With all the moisture, it was a good year for acorns, a fact that will make not just bear, deer, mice and squirrels happy, but also grouse, wild turkey, some woodpeckers, and blue jays. Oh, and me; what clever contraptions acorns are.

: The changing season also brings changing light, high-drama illumination like the shafts backlighting some self-sown nicotianas one recent afternoon.

: Various autumn crocus, or Colchicum, are in full force, these two in a puddle of gold-leaf sedum and oregano.

: Like I said up top, there’s work to do: repairing lawns where too many visitors’ feet on wet tour days trampled the busiest pathways. Bamboo canes remind me not to walk on the emerging seedlings in my haste.

: The crabapples up on the hill, especially the remarkable ‘Ralph Shay,’ are loaded.

: Even the old pear wants to show off, as will many smaller-fruited crabapples beyond it once their leaves drop in another couple of weeks.

: The Korean fir, Abies koreana, produced many more cones, like a whole late crop, this year, again I suppose thanks to so much precipitation.

: Somebody has made off with the goodies from many of them already, though, leaving only the bare stem that holds the seeds. Who? A chipmunk, gray squirrel or red squirrel is my guess.

: When it gets colder and these Clematis seedheads are ripened, the birds will go at them like crazy, but for now they just gleam in the afternoon light, chaotic little swirls.

: The various tall ornamental grasses are having their flowering time, too, and about to set seed.

: The big, dark purple-red flowerheads of Pennisetum ‘Purple Majesty,’ tender here and growing in a pot as an annual, are quickly turning to dramatic seedheads.

: Two old ‘Pee-Gee’ hydrangeas that were here when I arrived and have been cut back to nothing over and again are weighed down to the ground with excess growth from the rainy year. They look like I feel: tuckered out.

: The vegetable garden is loaded, too: with Brussels sprouts…

: …with ‘Delicata’ winter squash…

: …with baby pak-choi, a perfect crop for both cool ends of the season, ready to sautee with garlic for supper…

: …with the last of the basil (most is already frozen as pesto cubes, with another batch to go this week). There are beans, greens and other herbs as well still to enjoy.

: Somehow in this great light, colors (even of flowers that are past prime) look more intense to me, like this Callibrachoa does.

: An unnamed Abutilon, a tender shrubby thing living in a pot, is finally wanting to bloom…just as frost will take it out.

: Out in the far borders, there was the sweetest smell…a spring-like sweetness, so intense…but what was it? What could it be? I had to scout around among the many woody plants to figure it out.

: The perfume was coming from the half-faded flowers of Heptacodium miconiodes, a small tree with peeling bark. Who knew it smelled so intense? Not me, not even after 10 years together.

: Soon frost will cut down the salvias, like S. van houttii, which the hummingbirds (who haven’t fled yet) and I still admire beside the vegetable garden.

: Like I said, nobody around here wants to work. Look at this one: obviously, he’s been off eating chocolate while I was busy mowing and raking and trimming things back. Before long, he’ll be saying it’s too cold to come out of the pools again till spring. It’s always something.