I don’t know about you but I still have a lot of flowers with one or two blooms left and I am not quite ready to put the garden to bed. The leaves are suddenly starting to fall in abundance and the air has a tiny bit of a chill. A golden light filtering through the changing leaves floods the garden.

The last six months have not followed a completely normal pattern of temperatures. It was a long slow spring with a couple of spurts, an extremely hot dry summer and a longer than usual cool down with temperatures in the twenties just a few days ago. The plants are as confused as we are.

I was out walking today and saw buttercups, asters, strawberries all blooming away in the forest. The few cool nights tricked them into thinking that maybe the mild winter had come and gone so might as well bloom. The hours of daylight affect the plants as much as temperature so being similar to spring the conditions are okay for flower formation. A couple of weeks ago I saw a beautiful Pasque Flower or Prairie Crocus (Pulsatilla vulgaris) blooming.. It seemed so strange to see these flowers against a back drop of yellow poplar leaves and Larches just starting to turn.

After a few hard frosts, it will be time to take action to protect the more tender shrubs in the garden but we are not quite there yet. The accumulating leaves can be stockpiled on a now empty raised bed ready for using as mulch between the perennials and over my spring bulb garden.  The annuals that have finished flowering can be pulled and composted. Antirrhinums, Snapdragons are not one of them. They will continue to bloom through October. The vegetable garden can be be tidied up as vegetables are harvested. Root vegetables can stay happily in the soil until the soil becomes really solid although I don’t have any of those this year.

My tall Fall Flowering Monkshood is just now coming into its own, the Fall Asters are still blooming, Fall Crocus and Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ is at its best. These plants will gradually go to sleep as the temperatures become cooler. I never cut down my perennial border but just let it slowly decline. The reasons for not cutting it down are:

• Leaves are allowed to fall, decompose naturally and feed the soil
• Seeds feed the birds and may also provide me with new plants to discover in Spring
• The airy network of stems and helps to insulate the more tender plants
• The network of stems holds snow aloft creating more insulation and protection to everything beneath
• Seed heads and desiccated leaves provide  architectural interest in the winter garden
• The naturally formed layer of mulch acts as a weed barrier

In the spring when the layer of composting matter has dried a little, I simply pull or cut off any excess material and add to the compost. It is so much fun to see plants emerging in the spring. I rake or throw excess tree leaves on to my perennial beds over the next few weeks as the leaves come down.  After my Christmas foraging in November, I place conifer branches tipi style around those shrubs that need extra protection, roses, Magnolia, Hydrangea.

 I haven’t planted my spring bulbs yet so it is definitely still a bit early but not too early to be thinking about these chores. We are waiting for a slightly colder frost before picking the apples on the’ Haralson’ Apple tree. They sweeten up after a touch of cold. Our other tree as usual produced pounds of apples that have now all been juiced.

I hasten to add the pumpkin is not mine but the winner of this years local competition, 260 lbs. Photos include the garden, the forest and the Pasque Flower

My thoughts today go out to all those, especially the farmers and gardeners in the path of Hurricane ‘Helene’ and the exceptional weather patterns they are enduring. I wish them all the best in their recovery and hope not all their harvests are lost.