The Seasons of Autumn

Post 9  

                              

 First the orchestra tunes up. It is late Summer, when sweet Autumn clematis blooms up into an already fading dogwood.

 

Then the introduction sounds.  Early Autumn mutes the garden into dusty shades almost as beautiful as a second spring. Faded hydrangeas, not just the Mopheads but also the Pee-Gee, with its extravagant chatreuse and russet plumes, flop over, as fluttery layers of hardy begonia cascade down.
 

Woodland aster merges slate blue petals with coleus. And receding from the eye, shaggy periwinkle blooms of wild ageratum tease your gaze back into shadow. It's all a quieter beauty than spring's blaze, hushed, tranquil as dusk.

But slowly this twilight stirs and exhales, resounding through the air.  Then it is truly Autumn.

Pink chrysanthemums, cobalt purple aconite and white Montauk daisies will burst out in clear colors. The red maples, now a moody greeny orange will one morning flame red, the kind of backlit red that only nature can produce. Then  leaves will start to fall before most everything else edges into brown: red browns, mauve browns, maroon browns, bronze and golden browns.

The last to go will be the groundcovers-- bugleweed, epimedium and corydalis, which each year seem intent to prove they are really evergreens, while the evergreens stand smugly off, laurel and rhodo.

And all the while the roses will hold out, well into November, maybe even a bloom or two in early December, as if to connect, --if just by one bloom or hip--, to the February Camilla, as the year starts up again.

Midsummer and midwinter are long, closed seasons, but fall and spring are many seasons, open and mutable, which is why we always think they are too short. As they are