I think we gardeners are generally pretty good at finding color during a black&white winter but I still always feel like I should stock up before fall’s blaze dims. Even in the half-light of a gray day, oranges and reds, on Japanese maples especially, are so super-saturated right now that their leaves seem to fuse into a solid block of intensity. And I credit the yellow leaves for giving everything that strange glowy tawny tint though I should probably give all the shades of brown their due for that too.

And of course I wouldn’t want to diss the few things still – or starting to bloom. In honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens (tomorrow), here are a couple of tried and true November bloomers. — I say these are November bloomers but the autumn flowering cherries (Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’) in the Rose Garden have been my poster children for December the last few years. Evidently they loved our recent run of Indian Summer days. (Please excuse the blur – it’s impossible to get those tiny flowers to stand still on a windless day let alone a breezy one.)

Along with hording color, we’re also starting to forage for the bits and bobs we like to have on hand for embellishing the wreaths made in our upcoming (sold out!) workshops. Last year nature withheld her usual bounty but this year, not only is she being generous again, but we managed to find some treasures before they were whisked away with the fallen leaves. My only difficulty with task of foraging is having the fortitude to quit when tubtrugs and pockets are full. (I’m just as obsessive when I go to the beach. At least sweetgum seedpods don’t weigh as much as stones…)

Are you taking in Autumn’s last flash? And are you filling your pockets with treasures too?

It was a big and busy day yesterday, in more ways than one. We passed another milestone in this year’s garden calendar – the first real killing frost fell finally. And while that marked the official end of the growing season, we were glad for a chilly but sunshiny morning to finish planting — with the assistance of a small group of weather-proof volunteers — a few more ticking time bombs of hope for next year’s growing season. It’s hard to imagine just by looking at this tiny Tulipa clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ bulb, which looks for all the world to me like it has a lit fuse, that come spring it will burst into an exquisitely delicate pink-flamed flower. But that’s the promise so long as the squirrels don’t defuse it first. We also planted 300 wood sorrel (Oxalis adenophylla – I wish I had taken a picture of those hair-coverd fuzzbombs), a few hundred more crocus in the bed just outside the moongate, and 200 tiny winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) nuggets for our earliest visitors’ enjoyment. As much as I don’t just love the down-on-all-fours back break of poking narrow holes between the roots and stems of perennials and roses, I got kind of into it yesterday. There was definitely something cathartic in busting through a just-frozen crust of soil, with the sun warm on my back, and thinking about spring.

And now that the bulbs are all in, it’s time for us to think about winter. We took advantage of our volunteers’ extra hands to put the rest of the frost-nipped North Garden to bed. Gail and I feel a very grateful relief for being able to really focus on the next thing. It would be way too soon in real life to start decorating for Christmas but here at Blithewold, the mansion is almost completely gilded already and will be complete after the garden volunteers hang ornaments on the big tree next week. And here at the greenhouse Gail and I will be spending the next week and a half getting ready for the newest Christmas at Blithewold feature event, Christmas Sparkle. Every Friday night until Christmas the path from the mansion through the Enclosed Garden to the greenhouse will be lit with lanterns. There will be fires in the Enclosed Garden for marshmallow roasting (s’mores!) and hot chocolate in the greenhouse, which will be (as we like to think it always is) a welcoming wintery oasis of green growing things.

Has frost fallen on your garden yet? Are you focused now on the end of this season or are you still planting time bombs for the next?

I have been focusing so intently on the gardens lately (I’ll post about why next week) that I think I might have been in danger of forgetting to get excited about fall color. But over the last few days the sun’s spotlight illuminated autumn’s very edges and gave me the reminder I needed to look up and out again. I’ve heard that the stars have aligned to give us a spectacular fall – we’ve had just the right amount of sun and rain over the summer and perfect temperatures now; no Hurricane Irene to brown the leaves prematurely like last year, and, knock wood, there aren’t any October snowstorms in the forecast. Whatever happens in the coming weeks, autumn already looks spectacular here. So bright and pretty that it’s hard for me to imagine that it will peak later. Maybe we’ll have a more gradual plateau of sustained gorgeousness…

Is fall shaping up to be a beauty in your garden too? – Are you remembering to look up?

Last Friday, after a mostly rainy-drizzly week, Gail and I spent part of a fog-burnt morning surfing the interwebs in the Display Garden. I know spiders are busy this time of year because I have peeled their webs off my face and out of my hair, but as the dewy network was illuminated, it was plain to see that no plant, no span, no airwave is left untraveled. Amazing.

(Click on pictures for a better view.)

Can you see – or feel – the spidery activity in your garden?

Whole days go by now between hummingbird sightings and I just stood in the Display Garden with my camera poised for a good 15 minutes waiting to catch a glimpse of a monarch. They’re few and far between now. But just this morning I read a news blurb in the local paper that thousands of monarchs en route to Mexico stopped for a rest on Goosewing beach in Little Compton (click here to see the picture). If only they had taken a slight detour westward to visit us… I’m not sure if the monarchs we’re still seeing have come down from the North or if they have just been (re)born here — there are still plenty of caterpillars on the milkweed and butterfly weed plants. But I do know (because I looked it up like I have to every year) that these butterflies are the 4th generation great-grandchildren of the butterflies that began traveling up from Mexico last spring. Unlike their parents, grandparents and greats who only live 2-6 weeks as butterflies, these guys are made of tougher stuff. They’ll live long enough (up to 8 months) to make the journey back to Mexico, hibernate for the winter and mate in spring to circle the cycle back northward again. Wish them luck.

The hummingbirds we’re still seeing (which I can never seem to get a photo of) are making their way down from the North and stopping just long enough to tank up during their long journey to Central America. From what I understand, these travelers should be females and youth because the (older) males fly on ahead. I know some people took their feeders down during those few days when it seemed like our local birds disappeared for good, but if you leave it up – or leave plenty of late blooming salvias, porterweed (Stachytarpheta spp.), honeysuckle, fuchsias, and nicotiana in the garden, you’ll get on the migrant’s list of favorite roadside diners and those birds will return year after year. (Their average lifespan is estimated to be 3-4 years, which is pretty incredible considering their tiny hearts beat up to 1200 times per minute.)  And then don’t forget to put the feeder back out again in April/May.

Are you still seeing hummingbirds and monarchs in your garden?