I am joining the Propagator and his merry band of gardeners for another Six.
Dank, dripping, damp. The rain has finally come. On dry days, the temperatures fall. I follow the gradual progression toward winter’s illusion of deadness by watching my plants. The brown edging that has appeared on the banana leaves, a note of melancholy like a black armband. The towering evening primroses whose prolific seed pods have become food for goldfinches. The pale yellow of their feathers picks out the color of the few remaining flowers. And I listen to the rainfall on the roof, the flooding streamwater, the busy preparations of errant squirrels that make their way every year into the attic. I feel my own anxiety: will there be sufficient time, between work and sleep, and sufficient energy and initiative to tuck the remaining native plants into the ground before the frosts become more insistent? Are the exotic plants close enough to huddle into the house’s warmth and avoid the worst of the freezes to come?
Rogue Garden 
The garden is looking great – really taking shape. I hope you manage to get all the bits and bobs planted – I know how you feel on that front!
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Yeah, the energy starts to flag with the ever-shorter days and unmistakeable signs the the garden is packing it in for the year, but greed has given me a lot to accomplish before it gets any colder.
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That was a good read, although I too am now anxious regarding the wellbeing of your exotic plants. Fingers are crossed for them. The trees there are looking lovely and autumnal.
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Thank you for sharing the burden of my anxiety. Yes, we are getting some beautiful colors right now, especially from the prunus, dogwood, and silver maple.
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It is just so interesting to see different gardens around the world that are not the big public gardens with irrigation systems and extensive glasshouses to compensate for whatever extremes the climate comes up with. Your garden looks to be at the back end of a long hot dry summer, mine is lush and overblown. You’re going to get a much colder winter than me, yet the big cactus is presumably going to stay put. It would probably die here. In our different ways we’re all pushing like children to find the limits of what we can get away with in our gardens. One thing surprises us and lives, another surprises us by dying. We think we’ve learned something but the next season it’s all different. All that autumn colour along the street in picture two is a source of wonder but I know that if our climate changed enough for that to be possible here, most of my garden would be dead.
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Good work: keep it up! 🙂
Slowly but surely some parts of our garden are getting into a nice shape. Pictures will soon appear on my blog.
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I look forward to it!
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🙂
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I think all good gardeners feel anxious about their plants, they are our children and our investment in the future. I like the way the garden ties us to the rhythms of the seasons, like the squirrels in your attic, there is a real sense of urgency to prepare for winter. Nice post.
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Your description of the season is wonderful and oh-so-accurate. I’m feeling deeply grateful to be back in the desert and looking forward to winter as a period of pleasant weather, but we all have some version of this angst as the seasons develop.
Best of luck getting your new native plants in. I’ll be adding your blog to my following list in hopes of seeing more!
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I really do love the look of that yard!
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