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Pride in the Fall of Autumn

© Gay Klok

The nights are becoming longer and the darkness arrives so rapidly and seems to wrap you more securely in its arms. The heavy dews is helping to take some worry away from the dryness of this Autumn but the temperatures remind us of a cool Summer's night. The weather is topsy turvey and the plants do not know if they are coming or going. How could they? Our Summer was like Autumn or even a mild Winter and we have had warm days and nights this Fall.

In the very temperate climate of Tasmania, it makes our gardening life a puzzle. This is our busiest time of the year, [the American title of Fall is so much more descriptive] settling down the garden for Winter's sleep. After nearly fifteen years in creation, the country garden needs me to take a good, long look. The heavy rains and cooler weather has made one and all of the bushes and trees rush sideways and up, up, up towards the heavens.

It is time for me to send the bold and the ugly [not really ugly, but less beautiful] either to Horticultural Heaven or the unfinished gardens that I made, three years ago, to take the sick and the grown seedlings. I wanted to join up the three ponds to the rest of the ornamental gardens and like Topsy it grew, snaking down the hill from where we park our cars to the vicinity of the top small pond. It is now the longest garden I have ever seen. A great example of how not to create a new garden! If we get a winter time this year, and everything takes a halt, I will widen the long ribbon and turn it into three individual beds. The trouble is time grows shorter and strength wanes as the gardener's years pass. It would be a good exercise for me to start thinking clearly and accept the inevitable. In not many years hence we will have to leave our garden child and the new owners could deal with this writhing teenager's problems. I must face up to the inevitable but, when I do, I cannot stop my heart silently weeping. I remind myself that I behaved very well when our four human children left home. But they were leaving us and we are still near if they need us and When we said goodbye to the young adults, they were all very well weeded and shaped very nicely. However, the day will come and we will have to cut the umbilical cord with a sharp, stron, pruning knife. As the final curtain falls, the gardens must be in their best order and that will take years. Won't it?

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