The Slide Into Autumn

The Tall Flower Meadow is well into fade.

While the forest is gearing up for show time. The Virginia Creeper that climbs so many trees is one of the first to turn.

The Blue Asters will linger well into fall.

And the colors of the Lush will fade to brown, yellow and amber. A hard frost will hurry things along.

There is no frost in the diagnosis yet. That leaves the possibility of some fall color in the herbaceous plants.

In a good season the forest can get this vibrant. But you never know what you are going to get until it gets here.

The slide into autumn

When the color green loses dominance

Is about to arrive.

In The Morning Light

Might I say how pleasant it is to go for a morning stroll and know I don't have to rush off to work. The day is mine to move as slowly as I want. I can sit and watch the morning light turn on Miscanthus 'Morning Light'.

It shouldn't be too long before I can go back to a five day work week, but it will all be over by then.

Instead of wandering through the Tall Flower Meadow I will be thinking about moving ten tons of gravel to the basement patio. I sure hope I get that done this winter.

During my stroll a truck pulled off the scenic byway and a young dreadlocked hippie dude stopped to tell me how much he enjoyed my little house and all the flowers. That was sweet.

He lives at a nearby farm and manages a rustic hostel high atop Sandy Mush Bald. I have thought of hiking up to the hostel and told him so.

Signs of the change flutter down to rest on the Great Lawn.

After my slow morning stroll I climbed just as slowly up a ladder high into a tree.

Pe'a lele has found his perch. There is one more roadside attraction at Ku'ulei 'Aina.

Blue Wood Asters help light up the shadier parts of the garden. They continue to spread under my editing regimen.

On a slow day at the end of September the only thing that needs doing in the garden is to enjoy it.

On To Senescence

The color has started to fade.

The White Snakeroot has already turned to fuzz ready to take flight.

Soon only the blue will remain.

Every last moment of bloom counts now.

By winter only the grasses will be left.

This is my new Tatarian Aster gifted over the summer as bareroot whole plants getting ready for bloom. I chopped off their heads opting for survival over this year's flowers. They went ahead and sent up some tiny new bloom spikes. The intent is to remove the tall and floppy New England Asters and replace them with the more sturdy Tatarians.

I will always have the Blue Wood Aster.

The big senescence, the one that most people can't avoid noticing is yet to come. The forest is still contemplating things. The flowers will finish. The forest will turn.

I will be here watching.

Pe'a lele With Pumpkins

It gives me great pleasure to come home - to a sight like this the second I pull into the drive. It is wildness untended after a day of manicuring. The shorter days means the sun may already be low enough to set the grasses alight.

I had to coax a client today into letting the wild Frost Aster remain in her flower bed. What is that she asked? Is it pretty, I replied? Well yes, but it looks out of place. It would be better in the center.

I told her it was a native perennial Frost Aster. She let it stay. Then she asked me about planting milkweed for the Monarchs.

I don't really care where my Frost Asters are. There is no center of the bed.

I fondled my pumpkins yesterday and discovered one of them had mange from setting too long in the same position in the dung. I guess it is important to rotate your pumpkins as they grow. I went ahead and harvested five of them.

There is one more big orange one and four more yellow ones still growing on the vine. The vine keeps trying to set more, but I think time is running out.

I got five big pumpkins from the dung piles and five big pots of dried up variegated Feather Reed Grass at the discard rack. I brought them home, gave them a haircut and several long drinks of water. The remnant green blades have already started to grow. I think they will live.

They will probably spend the winter out of the pots and heeled into the dung piles. I don't feel like disturbing the Lush now to plant them and next spring after they wake up I can divide them to make more.

Pe'a lele is ready. On Sunday, my one day off, I will climb high in a tree and attached the bracket to the tree that the branch in his right hand slips into. He will be climbing the tree and looking back towards the scenic byway to taunt the travelers passing by.

Think twice before trespassing. Kapu.

An enchanted meadow where the spirits dwell.

The question is, of what sort?

It's late September in the Tall Flower Meadow. You'll have to wander in there to find out.

In The Land Of Blue Asters

They are everywhere.

And I did not plant a single one of them.

I plant things like pink mums that fall out of the ground as I am passing by

And a Dawn Redwood tree which is doing nicely its first season in the ground.

I don't plant the white Frost Aster either. It's all over the place too.

What I do is leave them alone when I edit.

This is what I get.

The Blue Wood Aster, Symphyotrichum cordifolium is a mass planting of nature's doing. This is how you get a grandiose late season floral display with no budget at all.

Before It All Fades Away

I haven't done any kind of chores in the garden in weeks.

There is no need.

It's wild and abundant and chaotic

And it looks mighty fine.

Besides, it will all be over soon.

Then winter will have its way.

And the Lush will be but a ghost of its former self.

There is no need for me to tend the garden now.

The vegetable garden might could maybe use some attention at some point. No hurry.

I'm busy enjoying what is, the way it is now.

Before it all fades away.