These anemone blooms are a pale shade of pink, but I thought they worked better when drained of that subtle color to better appreciate the architecture of their branching and flower structure. It also signifies the way that summer’s color is gradually draining from the garden, in the way the fiery oranges and reds of its flaring height have settled into the softer shades of the sedum and anemones. There will be a few flames yet to be kindled, in the mum-fest and the warm shades of all the pumpkins and gourds to come, but the garden is largely quieting down.
Our patch of ostrich ferns, once vibrant and chartreuse and full, have shriveled to brown and spindly ghosts of their previous glory. The large stands of cup plants stand shorn of their bright yellow petals, with only the mostly-empty radials of the buds that once held all their seeds, long since picked off by our army of finches. The hydrangeas, while still throwing out a fresh flower head here and there, have also faded – the bright pink and purple mop heads slowly turning to mauve and gray and brown – still attractive, in a different, more subtle way.
This is the turn of the season, perfect for some Sunday morning musing when it’s time to face the incontrovertible end to summer this week. Fortunately, I have a few tricks up my sleeve to make the fall just as colorful as our summers tend to be…
