The flowers in my garden are still blooming their heads off. It is amazing to see the garden at this time of the year as cold weather is coming. The impatiens are spectacular; I think this has been one of the best years for impatiens. The roses seem to look loveliest at this time of year. Is it because these are the last roses of summer? The chrysanthemums are filled with flowers. I usually like to see flowers with leaves. But to see all the chrysanthemum flowers covering the plant, the leaves are not much needed. My daughter thinks the flowers at this time of year are the prettiest of the entire flowering season. So why does TheGardenLady feel so sad when she looks at her garden?
As I brought my indoor plants indoors, I thought how much this GardenLady dislikes this time of the garden year.
Every year in the spring when the leaves are formed on the trees, in this area that is the month of May, TheGardenLady can’t wait to take the indoor plants outside where they are left on the deck or planted in the ground and remain all summer and part of fall. The plants are not brought back into the house until a week or so before the heat in the house is turned on. The plants seemed so happy when they were taken outside in the spring. I felt that I could hear them thanking me.
But now in the Fall the plants seem to know that they will have to go back indoors where the light is so much dimmer and the forced air heat will be drying. I believe my plants are not happy to have to come in. Oh yes, they know they will be warm and cared for. But their freedom is over.
Now the work of caring for plants really begins for TheGardenLady. All those pots of plants have to be carried in. And after a summer in the sun and rain, they have grown a tremendous amount. Some of the plants are quite large. Finding spots for them, let alone good spots, is a major challenge. And before they get placed in the house all the plants have to be cleaned off. There are leaves that have fallen into the pots or maybe nuts buried there by the squirrels. The pots are muddy from water splashed onto them from summer rains. TheGardenLady hopes that no pests are carried in with the plants. Last year a cicada had buried itself in the soil and emerged from the pot in the warm house. It was so surprising to hear cicada noise in the winter and to find a cicada gripping a branch of the plant. Many years I have brought in plants with tiny crickets- crickets with the shrillest, high pitched screeching. These little black crickets are relatively tiny and difficult to find even with all the noise they make.