Fall Garden equals Middle-Age

The harvest is in, the full bloom is near fading, seedheads rattling.

The hummingbirds have stopped buzzing through, loading up on nectar for their migration to Central America... a few Monarchs flutter by.

Autumn is poignant.

Shown here: swamp sunflower, cosmos, gourds

AWOL in Pluto

It's high summer, and my front-yard garden is a hub of activity. Just yesterday the baby Blue Birds "fledged" and flew off with their parents. The tomatoes are ripe. The sunflowers are gazing up. The bees, with their impressive work ethic, are busy as usual. There's weeding to do...someday. Not now.

I've been in Pluto, North Dakota-- in soul if not body. I'm reading Lousie Erdrich's masterful, beautiful novel, The Plague of Doves, about the intertwined, fascinating lives of the Ojibwe and whites who hate and love, murder and intermarry.

Weeding? Nah. Reading? Yeah.

We know it's fall at our house when the 20-foot Helianthus Augustifolios, aka Swamp Sunflower, is in burnished bloom.

It's a perennial--the only perennial sunflower I know of. Some folks cut it back in July to get a bushier plant, but I prefer mine lanky and swayin' in the autumn wind.

Great companion plant with something spikey and purple and cool--Russian sage, for example-- to play off its bright drama. Plant them in full sun and the two become fast friends.



Purple and yellow have emerged naturally as the dominant colors in my garden. And right now the color purple is stunning-- in an eggplant.