Fall Comes To the Cottage Garden

Turtles* are crossing the road The goldfinches pause to pose on the Rose of Sharon and wiggle it, but they don't seem quite as golden now. The webworms have done their work in the trees, the acorns are plip-plopping and the squirrels are scrabbling furiously in the oak woods.

Black walnuts are falling -- big green clunkers. The forsythia has a reddish tinge at the tips; we saw our breath the other morning. It's October.

Are you counting the days?

A few trees are turning in a half hearted way in this bone dry Pennsylvania fall. Our native dogwoods have colored a muddy red and the tupelo black gum has dropped a few leaves -- always among the first and the brightest of reds. I wish it would colonize a bit more, but perhaps the young tuliptrees or Liriodendron tulipfera are too aggressive.

In a corner of the garden where the root competition is severe and the bedrock is closest to the surface, the burning bushes are nearly defoliated and the Vanhoutte Spireas are crispy. These are signals of the severity of the drought we are enduring so unusually late in the year. In another section, the Japanese Snowbell we bought for my husband's birthday a few years ago may be a goner, although I did water it deeply once or twice.

Near the winter spring up behind the house, the Virginia Creeper is streaking red along the craggy trunk of my favorite of the giant oaks. Creeper is dressing up the screening on the back porch, too. I suppose I should remove it before it reaches the siding or a gusty fall wind pushes it like a sail and rips both the vine and the screen right off.

The pots of gaily bright and cheerful Busy Lizzies and wax begonias look as silly as plastic flowers against the woodsy backdrop now that it is no longer an indistinguishable dark and mysterious mixture of greens. Maybe they'll be frosted and mushy soon so I won't have to feel sorry about pulling them out and packing the pots away.

Even the classically simple glistening white Japanese anemones in the shady garden seem too bright. The dainty patch of hardy cyclamen blooming in little girl pink looks like a misplaced Easter egg beneath the lace buggy azaleas. But the tricyrtis are just about right, a subtle mottling in dignified and somber tones suited to the season. A quiet finale.

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