Fading, Fading, Fading......

Where have all the flowers gone?

One of the first signs that we are coming to the end of summer is when pernnial foliage loses colour and vigour and flower stems grow long and leggy as flowers start changing into seedheads.

Thalictrum foliage and spent flower heads

​When  Dahlias start to look raggy and the flowers smaller, and when the seedheads of grasses start to grow through the flowers.  It can look pretty in a tired kind of way, but ​the flowers are increasingly more sparse and those that are left are tired and raggedy.

 Even the pink spikes of Cimicifuga are looking past it. And as for the neighbouring Peony foliage - it is completely browned off!   While the foliage of the  Hosta in the foreground is all holes where bugs and insects have been busy all summer chewing away until there is practically no leaf left. 

I have never had such lush and healthy ferns! A rainy summer does have some benefits. The only problem is, I can hardly get down the path to the gate, as the ferns drip rain on my head, and even the 'Sally Holmes' roses from the other side, are bending right over the path dripping on me as well! So I'm a bit of a wet mess after a trip to the gate.

I did have the tools at the ready to repair some rogue mosaic pieces, which loosens and falls out of the paving now and again. But I was rained off and the tools just sat there getting drenched and looking miserable for 2 days!

 The chairs in the courtyard are stacked up, as the days are getting chilly and there is no invitation to have lunch outside in the sun any more. The Wisteria leaves from above are turning yellow and dropping.  If we were to sit on one of those chairs, as likely as not, at least one yellow leaf would float gently down from above to rest on your shoulder, another on your lap, or your head and yet another on your knee.

A spent sunflower head looming over my front fence into the street

In early summer we are so excited by new life, but now in late summer, there is a wistful sadness which permeates the earth as we see summer dying away.  Soon true autumn will be with us with it's blazing reds, oranges and yellows and we will be hoping for some autumn sunshine.  Will that be more cheerful than this dreary cold late summer day when the sun doesn't shine? ​​

A few bravely orange Dahias making themselves seen between Orach seedheads

Ornamental grape and the Chinese Trumpet Vine (Bignonia) climbing over the pergola where I park my car.

Summer is fast disappearing and Autumn is creeping in, and probably the most picturesque part of my garden at the moment, is under this pergola where I park my car!  The flowers of the trumpet vine drop all over the car making a dreadful mess of my car.  And yet I love to drive off with the flowers of the trumpet vine fluttering in all directions as I drive down the street.