A big hello to all! I took a break, longer than intended, but summer kept me busy in several ways. As is the habit with summer, it is over before you know it and October sets in with all kinds of challenges: digging for warmer clothes….rain, bulb planting, cleaning garden tools to store away, facing weeds that have grown undisturbed, working vegetables from the “potager“, picking up walnuts and rushing to get to the chestnuts before the squirrels do.

I love the fall colours of the hydrangeas…the blues turn to greens and the pinks and whites turn to an old, faded pink. The Maroccan mint is still a deep green which peeps through the pinks of the hydrangeas.

I never clean up too much…have always loved the difference in seasons…the rain and fallen leaves and twigs, the weeds, fried flowers and seeds…they all add to the atmosphere of autumn.

 

After the rain.

A bottle of wine forgotten outside….

Raindrops on some roses still blooming…

Rosehips living happily alongside Nepeta…

Rain crystals on rose petals…

Fresh water for all the animals..

Droplets hanging on cafe chairs..

The “potager” delivered a bounty of vegetables this year and is still going strong even though the weeds are flourishing right there along with the vegetables.

Beautiful light shimmering through changing vine leaves..

Stinging nettle needing no encouragement in flowering..

A yellow rose in the yellow garden..

Cleaning up is not a favorite passtime of mine. I love to make a mess..and I love to have someone else doing the cleaning up. Unfortunately, I am that “someone else”… Evidences of unfinished spring work still staring me incriminatingly in the face.

The mornings stay darker longer and the evenings turn darker earlier..lighting candles and chandeliers and lanterns make for atmospheric evenings, which is what autumn and winter should be about, after all.

Our windows are in and I revel in the reflections!

Reading asks for blankets…

Bright yellow nasturtiums in the yellow and orange garden add a blast of sunshine to cloudy days.

Apart form the beautiful colours of autumn which is so obvious, many other scenes of October beauty can also be found in: the disarray of garden chairs, a chicken hiding in a flowerbed, walnuts bursting, a dilapidated rattan chair for the chickens, an enamel jug, a garden tap, a garden cloche…

Work in a garden is never ending, no matter which season. And beauty in a garden is never ending, no matter which season.

And when the day is done, but the work is not, the beauty of it all is to kick out the boots, put up those feet and relax…!

…à la prochaine!..

Ronelle