The tiger eyes staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’ Tiger Eyes™) has been driving me to distraction all day. This is what happens to me in the fall. I can’t ride down any road without nearly driving off it rubbernecking some blazing tree. But I swear I’ve never before seen anything this color – anything besides flash-orange safety gear, that is. It’s really a good thing that I was only digging up plants today (there’s a frost warning in the forecast!) and not driving because I kept looking over my shoulders in disbelief. I wish the pictures did it justice, but you can get the idea: On a dark day, this sumac is lit like a beacon.

If I made a top 10 list or even a top 5, I think tiger eyes would have to be on it. In full sun, its electric yellow foliage might be a bit hard to take but we asked Fred and Dan to plant ours in the shade of the bamboo and the leaves remained a lovely chartreuse all season. Until now. Word is, it might spread aggressively in the way that sumac does, by sucker – but I really don’t think I’ll mind a some babies popping up here and there…

Do you have a tiger eye sumac and/or an opinion about it to share? Are there any other glow-in-the-dark beauties driving you to distraction right now?

It’s certainly not over (there’s truly no such thing as over in the garden – slowed down maybe; hushed a little; moved inside, perhaps) but the blustery winds of change have made the seasonal shift much more perceptible in the last couple of days. Gusty October gales have scattered the first major leaf drop and flipped up the skirts of late bloomers in the gardens making everyone look a little wild and disheveled as if they all stayed up too late and really need their beauty sleep now.

In one way our season at Blithewold is coming to an end. After this weekend, the mansion will be closed until the day after Thanksgiving (when it reopens transformed). The grounds remain open all year but we take the house closing as our cue to get into the gardens to dig up, divide, reorganize and plant bulbs. If you haven’t been by lately and want to see how the colorful the gardens still are – just before they are put to bed, don’t let this weekend blow by.

It’s amazing to me – I could say I’m blown away about how the palette of colors in the garden and greater landscape really changes in the fall. If spring is generally pastel-y and summer is electric Technicolor, fall is definitely deep earth tones, 70′s style. Even the colors of everything still blooming in the garden, dahlias and roses particularly, intensify in a way that works with the fall palette of oranges, avocado greens, maroon browns and mustard yellows and help to keep it all up to date. And the chrysanthemums, like ‘Sheffield Pink’, ‘Clara Curtis’ and the mystery burgundy one in the North Garden, that are just beginning to come into bloom jive perfectly too.

There’s something mysterious and beautiful about the angle of light. The angle itself is similar to spring but the feeling of it is so different maybe because of deeper shadows of lush foliage – spring light is bare and wide open. Gail and I were talking the other day about the seasons and she determined that I am definitely a spring person. I’m full of energy and go into raptures about a single unfurling leaf and the color chartreuse just gets me. She on the other hand loves autumn the best partly because of the abundance of blooms and the satisfaction of seeing the spring’s hard work truly fruitful. I can totally follow that. I know she’s right about me and spring but I want to call fall my favorite too.

Have you been blown away yet this fall?

Bonus question: Do you have a guess on the identity of the burgundy chrysanthemum pictured above, left? (We think it might have been planted in the North Garden by a bride looking for late season color a few years back and it’s grown into a handsome clump that’s just perfect in the North Garden!)

I’m having a really hard time doing my job today. Gail has set an all-moved-into-the-greenhouse deadline of October 15 and that means I need to get busy now digging up the tender plants and loading the cart with container plants and bringing them all inside. But those plants are still so beautiful outside that I can’t help but drag my feet and find everything else to do instead. But it must be done. If only there was a frost warning in the forecast, (thank the stars there isn’t!) I’m sure I’d move at steadily fast pace and feel justified in breaking up favorite combinations. But even though a lot of our tender plants can take the cold and even light frosts some of them, it’s less shocking to their little systems to come inside before we turn on the heat. The same goes for houseplants – especially any that won’t have a relatively humid greenhouse to live in over the winter. If you haven’t brought your plants in yet, consider doing it soon so that they can begin to acclimatize to life on the inside.

I have to admit that there is a part of me that likes this particular transition in one way and I’m even secretly glad to have the time to do it right. There’s almost nothing I love better than grooming plants and potting them up. Taking care of the container plants doesn’t even feel like work. Truth be told, I have a slightly perverse tendency to put that off to do something else that might feel more important simply because it is less enjoyable somehow. But potting up and grooming plants before or as they come in for the winter is really important no matter how Zen blissful. Take the time now to clean off dead leaves, prune and shape, weed, check for critters, and give your plants a mildly soapy bath if they’re like mine at home and covered in scale and sooty mold. And re-pot them now to save making a mess of scattered potting soil inside later. As for fertilizing, (a very rare treat for my plants at home, alas) the rule of thumb is to quit feeding by Halloween and resume when the days get appreciably longer triggering new a new growth cycle – usually February or March.

Have you moved your houseplants and and/or tender stock plants back inside yet? Do you have any tips to share?