Throughout the garden there are signs of the inevitable decline that comes at this time of year. Flowers have stopped blooming; in many cases, there are dried up stems where once there were beautiful, green plants. I’ve been looking at all of it through the camera’s lens for the past couple of days.
There are, hidden among the fallen leaves and debris, a few defiant ones – flowers that still bloom despite the disarray around them.
All of the purple coneflowers look like this:
But, almost hidden away in the side garden, I saw this:
The last man standing. So beautiful.
A few defiant brown-eyed susans.
The last of the roses.
A bloom hidden deep within the butterfly bush.
There are some catmint flowers here and there.
The spirea is giving us one last burst of flowers.
And the phlox isn’t giving up without a fight.
My goodness, there is such a beauty in this decline, these flashes of color amid the fading greens and browns of the Autumn garden. It’s easy to focus on what was, instead of what is. And what is, is completely gorgeous in its own right.
Oh, I saw a Monarch Butterfly the other day! I didn’t have my camera and it was flying quickly around the property. It was gorgeous. Sadly, I don’t see them much anymore, so when I do, I stop and watch it until it fades out of sight.
Today is another beautiful, sunny fall day. I’m lapping all of this up. Tomorrow, I head into the city again to watch a run-through of the show.
I stopped by the library the other day.
I’m pretty sure the Sue Grafton books I’ve missed reading are S through V. Fortunately, my little local library had them on the shelf. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Ace Atkins but have yet to read any of his books. This one was on display, so I grabbed it. I had been in the queue for All the Light We Cannot See and it finally came in.
Just as it did when I was a little girl going to the bookmobile every week, a stack of library books makes me very, very happy.
Happy Saturday.
I like the title of your post! The weather here has suddenly become unseasonably warm – perfect for our long Thanksgiving weekend.
All the Light We Cannot See seems to be a popular read at the moment. I’m going to walk to the library later today to see if they have a copy. Reading about WWII always resonates with me, probably because of my family history. I look forward to reading what you think of the book.
Oh, lovely – it sounds like it’s going to be a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend for my Canadian friends. Have fun!
Libraries are a great place for all ages! Enjoy, Doris
You said it, Doris!
Now that we can order books online through the library I would be lost without it…..better than a book store just because you don’t have to spend money! I always say I get a big portion of my property tax back because of the money saved from using the library…
Good point! Our taxes are high here – too high – but I do appreciate the wonders and joy of our local library!
I think the last of the flowers are special treasures as we head into late fall and winter. I have some Fall blooms but they too will fade in time. It’s raining AGAIN today. I know I shouldn’t complain but I had plans for outside today. Alas, I’ll just turn that frown into a smile and work inside! Maybe I’ll bake some muffins that will cheer me up!
hugs,
Linda
Oh, send a muffin my way, Linda! I’m sorry it’s raining…hopefully tomorrow will be sunny!
I still have flowers on my White phlox too, but I guess it’ll disappear soon as it has been freezing Cold here some nights.
I just love the library too, but I Think there are less and less books at our small library here. It’s a pity, but maybe people don’t lend books the way they used too. I just love books and have plenty of them could never throw them away.
Hope you have a nice Saturday.
Love Elzie
I could never throw them away, either! We have a very small library but it is part of a bigger library system so I can order books from other libraries. It makes a big difference in reading possibilities!
I was finally able to tour my “property” yesterday (it isn’t much. We live in a town house) and found my sweet, fragrant violets blooming again. I picked just one to sniff, they remind me of my Mom. They are so shy and love the cooler weather, maybe I will see a few more before frost.
What a lovely surprise! I hope you see even more them!
This is Rhinebeck weekend and we are missing it, wah!
Love you,
M
It is absolutely gorgeous, too, Mer. It’s the perfect weekend for the Festival.
My favorite library was the one near Chinatown in San Francisco. Great old building and the smell of books everywhere. The librarian was a kindly gentleman who used to draw dragons on small pieces of notepaper for all the children who checked out books from him. We’d all queue in his line just to get a hand-drawn dragon.
It sounds totally magical!
The last of the flowers…what a delight! I’m sure that is a half glass full kind of thing. My geraniums are still blooming…the leaves on them are changing colors…but they are blooming like crazy! 79 is the predicted high for tomorrow! What? Enjoy this beautiful day…read outside on your porch….I know I would! ;)
My geraniums that are in the whiskey barrels are still going strong! It’s so gorgeous today!!
Claudia, It’s good to see some of the flowers still hanging on. I loved the pictures of your previous post too. I can see why you love your home and it’s surroundings. So much nature. I have chanced butterflies around the yard…one can look like a loony person doing that. LOL. Blessings for a wonderful weekend, xoxo,Susie
I see a lot of swallowtails, but I’ve only seen one Monarch so far. Troubling, since we know they’re on the decline. Have a great weekend, Susie.
I know this beauty.
We hardly have 4 seasons here… But some years mid summer looks very much the same as your fall, at MHC.
There is beauty in fading flowers. I do the same thing with butterflies… Watching them as they fly off to their “end of days”
… It’s almost a respectful thing to do.
I agree, Pat. Butterflies are magical to me and so beautiful my heart skips a beat!
I have a few flowers still hanging in there…I will have to take a walk down to the creek and see how the wildflowers are doing…Darn..don’t you always see something good when you don’t have your camera with you?..I am also waiting to hear your review of “All The Light We Cannot See”…Have a good trip into the city again..
Isn’t that always the case? Although, even with my camera, that Monarch was moving pretty fast!
I’m reading Sue Grafton right now. I’ll probably get to All The Light We Cannot See sometime later in the week. Have a good day, Nancy.
Lovely day here today and a fantastic one forecast for tomorrow! Time to get as much done outside as is possible. My spirea is blooming again, too! Even the coleus looks good yet and the geraniums are just beautiful. I am so glad that they are getting their last “Hurrah!!” ~~ because so many years we get an early frost and they aren’t given the opportunity.
Hope you have a fine day!! ☀️
And I see so many morning glory buds on the vines now – they’re really blooming late this year. Fingers crossed that they get their day in the sun!
My MG’s are also just loaded right now. Maybe I have never seen this many because of those earlier frosts we usually have. Looking forward to what looks like at least another week of frost-free weather!! yay!
Fingers crossed on both hands, Chris!
Great post. My geraniums are still going strong, but this week I finally had to clean up my little kitchen garden. Sent the grape tomatoes to my brother’s compost pile and brought the basil, oregano & rosemary inside to my bright dining room window. They don’t always make it all the way through Winter, but every year I hope. And I hope we have a long, long Fall with Indian Summer weather, followed by a chilly, very rainy Winter [so we replenish the water table] and a wee bit of snow on Christmas Eve. So that’s my winter weather order. Time will tell on that one – LOL. Have a great weekend – hope you get to the Rhinebeck Festival. I’ve been and tis lots of fun! ??
I heartily concur with your winter weather order. That would be fabulous! I’ve been to the Rhinebeck Festival a few times but money’s tight – and I’m not currently crocheting or knitting – so it’s a no go.
Hey, Claudia, those black-eyed susans and coneflowers are great food for finches and other birds throughout the fall and winter, if you can look past the dried, brown flower heads!
ps. My mother-in-law used to say roses’ last blooms of the season were so lovely – she said it was their “swan song”!
Oh, I know that. I’ve written on the blog before that I don’t do any cleaning up in my garden beds until spring. The flowers provide seeds, the plants provide cover.
Have you noticed that those purple coneflower seedheads attract finches? As bad as they look, I won’t cut them until very late in the season because I love watching the finches feed on them. I love my local library too and we have a wonderful inter-library system. Happy Saturday!
I don’t even cut them down until Spring. They provide seeds for the birds and the plants provide shelter for all sorts of critters, as well as birds. It stays ‘as is’ until March!
It is so true. I remember many butterflies when I was a child and there are fewer now. When I spy one, I find I hold my breath and stay still because it’s such a rare sighting. I’m finding, though, that bees are returning. I only stopped for a minute in the car to make a phone call, windows down slightly in a parking lot, and two bees got inside the car with me, momentarily freaking me out; there weren’t any unusual plants or bushes around that I could see (it was kinda scary!).
The catmint with autumn leaves in the frame is a gorgeous photo but, truly, all of your photos are always such a treat. Thanks for sharing them, and it’s an interesting approach for the post, sort of treasures amid the ruin; seems like your summer was short, Claudia!
As adults, though, and with so many duties at home and work…full days…does the stack of library books we’d gather as unencumbered children remain a happy thing, or does it now cause adult pressure (time constraints)? I thought you hinted at that a couple of posts back. I’m finding this with magazines and am ending some subscriptions; I can’t get to them, they stack up; takes the joy out of it. Just wondering where you put your head on the subject of the library. I think it’s part of when I started BUYING (too many) books rather than BORROWING them from the library…the whole thing of life getting busier and not enough hours in the day, yet if I BUY this book now, at least I have it and I know I’ll get around to reading it; at least it’s safe on my own bookshelf with no deadline; only to then also not often even make enough time for THEM. Of course this is all also about good time management, balance and priorities.
I’m glad you’re enjoying nice Fall days and hope your visit to the city is enjoyable. We almost broke an all-time heat record in history yesterday; our temperature peaked at 106 degrees (f); I clocked it at 4pm; might have started earlier; couldn’t believe it but then, yes, it came in as the official high. The evening news said that Southern California’s deserts are actually cooler right now than the L.A. basin and valleys. It’s really quite unbelievable. We’re at 100 degrees, right about now at 1pm. The weather people say that the normally-cold Pacific has heated up so much that we can’t get a cooling breeze off of it and I think even Long Beach yesterday was 105. I had dormant bulbs erupting off-sync…just towering flowers…and my roses got really tall and beautiful – – all of them suffering so badly yesterday that I went out in the evening, reluctantly because it was still so blistering even at sundown, and they were all down on the ground; they surrendered. And it will be hot for days yet. Please, Claudia, send your magic carpet…get me outta here!! I think more than a few fans had to leave Dodger Stadium early last night, not because their team was losing in Game 1 of the playoffs but because they’d been in the heat for too many hours; it gets hot in that canyon anyway (a place called Chavez Ravine). I saw some news coverage of the players and they looked thoroughly drenched.
Too darn hot! as Cole Porter would say.
There is a little pressure on getting the books read in a certain amount of time. But I don’t have the option of buying any books right now, so I try to renew them when necessary and, hey, it’s not a sacrifice to devote myself to reading!
As with all things, an end is inevitable. Its great to see the few still putting up a fight, defying nature or so it seems, but alas they can only fight and be defiant for so long. Change is inevitable, and even flowers cannot escape that.
Lovely photos, and greetings to you.