Big Time Garden Clean Up

No help for it. Our glorious garden has to be put to bed. Not only must we destroy all the lovely and thriving annuals, still glorying in whatever sun we get and mustering sufficient energy to surmount the occasional surprise of overnight frosts, but also the perennials have to be cut back neatly in preparation for winter.

Destruction of so much beauty is painful. Either we do the necessary, or wait for winter to arrive and wreak its anticipated destruction throughout the garden.

Better, we have discovered, to take the flowers out ourselves and instill a sense of confidence in the preparation for another season. Come spring, we can sit back with ease in the knowledge that all has been done that had to be done. From scattering compost over the newly-naked beds, to storing wire cages and garden ornaments, the movable seating arrangements and the many stakes no longer required to prop up blossom-heavy stems.

We are enjoying unusual fall weather, much milder throughout this blessed week than should be normal for this time of year. And the mornings! Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky in the morning, sailor taking warning...despite which the morning glory has revealed tenderly mild days where in truth the lingering garden could yet be permitted to glory.

But our memories of past falls remind us that weather here can turn in a matter of hours into bitter cold, when frost-bitten fingers are taxed miserably to conduct the preparations we do now in leisure.

Yesterday the sweeping bottom branches of one of our blue spruces were removed, leaving bare all that ground underneath the tree. The tree itself, bottom branches taken away has assumed the aspect of a Japanese specimen tree. Unseen through the branches tattered by age now removed was a double, twisted trunk whose revelation strikes us as beautiful.

And today, dividing hostas and heucheras, after preparing the soil, we have built a new garden.

Adding to the many delights that await us come spring of 2008.