Sigh, The Garden Goes To Sleep
Yes, it's inevitable, but that doesn't make it any easier. The garden flourishes, it nourishes our souls with its beauty. When it was just early September I consoled myself with the thought that there was at least another whole month of "summer" in the garden, when we could continue to enjoy that unsurpassed beauty, the colour, fragrance, texture, architecture of the many garden beds and borders. And so it was. But how swiftly a month passes!
It's a yearly ritual. Hold off for as long as possible. Maintain that living beauty for as long as one can. It's just too heart-wrenching, too unfair to dismantle it all. To remove the annuals, still thriving and colourful, to cut back the perennials, still holding aloft their bright flowers. In the wake of which there is a sere landscape awaiting the advent of frozen days, of wind and snow and ice.
It has become unseasonably cold; colder than what is considered to be normal here, at this time of year. So unfair! So predictable. Weather is not predictable, but that it will do unexpected things, gifting us one day with bright sunshine and mild temperatures, blasting us with harsh winds, unremitting rain and cold temperatures the next, is predictable. We just tend to forget the inevitable.
Yes, for about a month I've been steadily cutting back those perennials whose days of bloom have passed. And those annuals whose bright colours became wan and sparse were disposed of. Gradually, the clean-up commenced and although it hardly seemed to make a difference in the overall appearance of the still-rampant growing things, it brought a tinge of sadness to the ritual that is fall.
Now, however, there is no mistaking the season. And preparations for retiring the garden must begin in earnest. That work will take many days of effort. But sad though it is, there is still the thought and the certainty that this is but a temporary set-back in the annals of one's garden's life.
For after winter doth come spring. And in preparation for that grand event, once the gardens have been cleared away, the new tulip, daffodil, crocus and hyacinthe bulbs will be planted, and watered until the ground gives way to frost.
posted by Pieface @ Friday, October 13, 2006
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