The gardener's heart can beam with love for their garden. In this season, the turn to fall, so many things happen, tiny nuances that make you aware that with each passing day there is a shift. This change is not just in the plants themselves but in every living thing. I walk at night and have to watch my step, walking slowly because hoards of tiny gray frogs are moving from water to land. With each opening of a door, there is a visiting toad, leopard frog, or tiny, tiny baby frog; tread carefully.
The hummingbirds are frantic for nectar, almost ignoring the gardener as they try and sip nectar with an eye towards the sky and other nectar feeders. They fight a lot, between themselves, between other nectar seekers, back and forth they go, with the energy of a 2 year old. Only the gliding monarch seems to be calm, they lilt this way and that, riding the smallest lift in the wind to look for flowers that deliver sugar. I suspect they are not actually calm, the road to their winter home is long.
I grew sunflowers this year after a few years without them. The variety I chose was 'Sunzilla' and my tallest plant was 11 feet, 6.5 inches tall. The squirrels used to rip off my sunflower heads, but I think they forgot how much they like them. I have some remarkable heads forming, one has fused, two sunflower heads together.
I'm still creating flower arrangements, preparing for the lecture at the end of this month. My latest creation includes the seed heads of Peony obovata. The red berries are scarlet! This arrangement also includes Lycoris radiata, Abelia 'Little Richard', and barberry stems.
When it's not time to look for a flower to cut, it's time to enjoy the garden's fragrance. At night it's a lure that is almost impossible to ignore. The angel trumpets are spectacular this September. Digging them up every winter is paying off as they have grown into small trees.
All of these were purchased as generic brugmansia and I have identified them as best I can. Of course the flower color helps, also the color phase the first night versus the second night. I suspect the peachy one is Charles Grimaldi. It's the shyest to flower but certainly delivering this month.
I decided to make a list on the things I do poorly in the garden, given my expectations from spring to fall. The one thing I am really bad at is staking dahlias. Hopefully I will keep this in mind as spring arrives and new stakes are bought and time is taken to get them in the ground. Getting them in the ground - that's the hard part. Keeping enough twist tie, that's the other hard part. I do great with other people's gardens, just not my own. Some plants fall gracefully, dahlias don't! The other thing I regret every year is not buying enough bulbs in fall. I just ordered my alliums, so that can be taken off the list. I suggest you consider the same thing, a list of spring regrets, fall regrets, just general "gardener's" regrets. It seems like the same things haunt us from year to year.
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