Autumn... the year's last, loveliest smile.
--William Cullen Bryant
Summers are short here in the Arizona mountains. Our average last frost day in spring is June 15, and our average first frost day is September 15. We were supposed to have frost last night, so yesterday I harvested all the basil and made pesto and all the tomatoes and made tomato soup. The tomatoes and basil are still standing, so the frost didn't come, but we are on borrowed time. If you've read this blog at all before now, you've probably noticed that I am not a cold-weather person. I love shorts and flip-flops and beach waves and sand between my toes and sitting in the sun and evening strolls without a jacket. But even for me, there's something wonderful about this time of year. Each warm day, each night without a killing frost, is a gift. And not to wax too philosophical (though fall is a philosophical time), but each day and night are gifts. Fall just reminds me of that in a more obvious way.
There's also something wonderful about the transition seasons, fall and spring. Winter and summer are fairly consistent. Sure, there are subtle changes from beginning to end--and not-so-subtle changes in the garden from the beginning to the end of summer. But for the most part, it's consistently warm or consistently cold, or at least it is here. I either need a jacket or I don't. The garden is either sleeping or burgeoning. But spring and fall are more unpredictable, and the changes from day to day more obvious. Daffodils appear as if out of nowhere in the spring, followed all too soon by the cursed grasshoppers. Leaves turn color (and fall into my pond) over the space of a few short weeks in fall. I can see the San Francisco Peaks--the highest mountains in Arizona--from my front yard. Every fall I watch the gold of aspen leaves start near the tops of the mountains and spread down the flanks. And then I pick those !@#$% leaves out of my pond and out of the drainage channel. I have a love-hate relationship with leaves.
I've been trying all year to capture some moments in time in the garden. I tell myself it's so I can study the pictures to improve my garden design, but really it's just because I like looking at them. Gardens remind us that every moment is fleeting. That perfect peony poppy at 7 AM will have dropped its petals by 5 PM. Better capture that moment now. And--again with the philosophy--life is like that too. Hold onto those joyous, perfect moments while you can. Experience every moment. For all too soon, they'll be gone.
So here are my attempts to catch the garden as it slips gently from summer to fall. These were taken on Wednesday morning, two days before the official start of autumn. You'll see a lot of pictures of mums, because I'm in love with my mums. To give you an idea of why, here's a picture of the garden along the driveway last fall, when I had just planted my $.50 mums from Wal-Mart:
And here's that same spot as of last Wednesday:
Not bad for a single year, huh? And yeah, those are the same mums. Proud gardener is proud.
Here the mums are pushing aside the alyssum and petunias--symbolic of the change in seasons, no?
This one looks like it's been sneaking steroids behind my back.
Winter-sown alyssum, salvia from the closeout rack at Wal-Mart (maybe $2/plant), and New Guinea impatiens that I couldn't resist.
I never cared much for ornamental grasses before I moved to Flagstaff. I thought they were boring, and I'm allergic to most of them. I'm not fond of boring stuff that attacks me. But I've fallen in love with them here (though some of them still give me hives if I touch them). They require little care, and they look lovely poking out of snow in the dead of winter. This one started blooming a couple of weeks ago. In about 3 months, it'll be the star of the winter garden.
More ornamental grasses:
The nasturtiums got off to a slow start, but they are gorgeous now.
And then there are the tomatoes. Until this year, I'd harvested a full-sized, vine-ripened tomato precisely once in Flagstaff. This year has been amazing. I'll miss the fresh tomatoes when the frost kills the vines, but it will also be a relief. I'm tired of figuring out what to do with them, and they've taken over big sections of the garden. It'll be fun to see what's growing under the tomato jungle.
I grew the geraniums from seed--really old seed I got for about a nickel at a dollar store in Southern California in 2012. I wasn't sure the seed would still germinate, but I winter-sowed it just in case, and here's the result. The Alberta spruce I snagged on closeout at Home Depot for about five bucks.
Water mint:
And now for the pumpkins and squash. These are growing in an area of the garden that I just started to cultivate. I didn't do a great job of prepping the soil or mulching, but they're still producing.
On Halloween last year, I got a huge white pumpkin for very cheap at Home Depot, because they were closing them out. Of course I planted some seeds from it. The resulting pumpkins are much smaller than that monster (like I said--I didn't do a great job of soil prep), but they're still interesting:
And a Cinderella pumpkin with just a few wild purple asters peeking around it. Can't get much more autumnal than that.
Happy autumn!
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