Messiness-is it?

 It all depends on how you define mess!!

We tend to think of Hosta's as beautiful only in late spring and summer when the colourful  variegated foliage is splayed out  in all it's lush green summer glory, beneath trees and shrubs.   But not in autumn when it's leaves have become all droopy, floppy and dirty yellow or crinkled up and brown.  But look again!
​At the the graceful way the stems naturally fall, and the intricate way the spent seedheads are arranged!  Even the worst (or should we say the best) of those very old grey crinkled leaves are really the most interesting shapes are they not?  Just because they are old and grey and wrinkled doesn't mean to say they are not beautiful!   Just like us!  ​

See above three examples of the beauty of seedheads and dying foliage. There is so much to look at in the interesting shapes of the fading foliage of seasonal plants contrasted against the evergreen shapes of permanent shrubby plants such as Astelia.

Seedheads of the annual weed - Red Orach 'Atriplex hortensis rubra' mingling with intricate golden seedheads of 'Queen Anne's Lace' - 'Ammi majus'. These light airy seedheads then contrast against the golden colour of autumnnal lily foliage and fading Dahlia foliage, with the showy seedheads of the grass Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Overdam' threading through all. All of this contrasts against the more permanent variegated foliage of C. 'Overdam' and it's showy seedheads

I have learned through the New Perennialist movement how important it is to open our eyes and see the beauty  in each stage of a plants life from birth, to death.  I get so much more pleasure from  appreciating the season of seedheads and dying foliage instead of discounting it as messy or untidy - something that should be trimmed away out of sight as soon as possible.  I think Piet Oudolf has trained me well, because this year I am really and truly loving the more muted colours and shapes of seedheads and dying foliage in the garden - even when Dahlia foliage droops rather ungracefully.  ​​

​I haven't once felt the itch to get the secateurs out and cut it all away. Even if the Dahlia foliage next to the lily is a wee bit droopy with a touch of powdery mildew as the leaves yellow off, does it really look that awful?   The seedheads of the grasses winding through it make it look quite beautiful!  ​

And I haven't even felt tempted to come along and lop off those spent Dahlia flowers yet.  I am enjoying them for what they are - spent flower heads knowing  at the end of the season there is very little flower left, so why don't I just appreciate what is there, instead of tidying it away.

You couldn't possibly want to lop away this majestic autumnal lily stem - its golden foliage almost as beautiful as it's flower

Above : The view through my kitchen window. Upper right : fallen petals from the autumn flowering Camellia sasanqua 'Apple Blossom'. Lower right : Around the corner from my house - fallen elm leaves in Elm Grove.

Isn't it wonderful the way our trees and plants won't be contained within neat borders but spread themselves beautifully over every surface in autumn.   How important it is to enjoy and revel in autumn when for a relatively short time, colourful leaves clothe and light up our boring paths and hard surfaces with such panache.   They are not to be tidied away yet!   But perhaps only in the dead of winter when they go brown and drab, sloshy and slippery.  Maybe that would be the time to sweep them away to make way for the new season - the freshness and glory of spring. ​​