It was a very good year

Posted on February 4, 2026 by composerinthegarden

Winter is always the best time to look back at last year’s garden. I love that I can suddenly forget the deep snow and bitter temperatures while immersing myself in photos and videos full of color and life. Now is the perfect time to look back at the garden in bloom, while ignoring the current view from my window. Window well filled with snow

It was an enormous relief to be able to take photos again after my shoulder healed from surgery in February. The April garden came alive with fresh green leaves and delicate spring flowers. view of April garden from above

May burst over the edges of the garden beds and it was hard to choose just one photo. The entrance to the circle garden is one of my favorite views, an arbor covered in roses and surrounded by other flowers in May. Arbor covered with pink roses and surrounded by pink flowers

Did you know that human eyes can detect more shades of green than any other color? The endless rains in June made for lush foliage in both garden and woods – this scene spoke to me, inviting me to enter the green green woods.

July became a riot of color from the daylilies and summer perennials, yet the foliage spoke almost as loudly on a misty day. View of the circle garden from the deck in July

August was prime pollinator season, with insects gathering as much food for winter as possible. Echinacea purpurea was especially attractive to both humans and bumblebees.

The rains returned after a dry July and August and the garden was often enveloped in fog and mist. The arbor into the circle garden once again became a favorite view, inviting me to linger under it and study the layers of the garden.

Circle garden entrance in September

Enveloped by the same fog, the woodland walk matured quickly in its second year thanks to the heavy rains of spring and fall. The was Pixie’s favorite spot to keep watch in the woods. Woodland walk in fog in September

The low brilliant light of October mornings made for drama in the front walk.

By November, bright color had moved from the flowers into the leaves, a riot of autumn hues. Autumn leaves in the garden

I gathered my favorite video clips in a similar fashion, portraying each part of the circle garden and woodland walk through the seasons.

With 2025 behind us, I wish you a new year of beauty, laughter, and great adventures as 2026 unfurls before you.

Autumn – the beautiful denouement

Posted on November 23, 2025 by composerinthegarden

Denouement is a French word that literally means the action of untying, from a verb meaning to untie. Noun: the outcome of a complex sequence of events

The leaves have untied themselves from the trees, or perhaps they were gently let go. Generously covering the garden beds and the forest floor, they color the world in tones of gold, orange, rust, and brown while returning the nutrients to the earth in an ancient process of release, decay and regeneration.

Autumn was a long languorous process, with its first hesitant steps in September proceeding through stages of leaf color change and ultimate descent to the earth.

Every day, the stroll through the garden was different. The early morning sun could cast fiery color and deep shadows or it could be filtered through a gentle mist that saturated the leaves and enhanced the rich range of autumnal color.

At last the storms and winds prevailed and the fall of leaves over a few days and weeks was spectacular. I was able to capture some of the magical moments of this process in video.

You may be in the southern continents where spring is now emerging, or in a tropical zone where there is no autumn. The earth is a wide and wonderful place and I have been privileged to see much of it in person. Yet, there is something about autumn in the northern continents that tugs at my heart, the dramatic shift in color and the subtle earthy scents of a world renewed by the long arc of seasonal change. Wherever you are on this planet, I hope that you can savor the beauty and sweetness of denouement, the end of one season and the beginning of another.

The beauty around us

Posted on September 30, 2025 by composerinthegarden

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. ~Mary Oliver

After a seven week-long drought, four days of slow steady rain arrived exactly on the September equinox. The constant rain healed the deep cracks of dried earth and gradually refreshed and revived the trees, plants, and wildlife. Constant morning fog was catnip to this photographer.

The sweet smell of dry earth refreshed by rain, known as petrichor, filled my senses for days. The woodland path held that scent the longest, the first place Pixie and I explore each morning.

The ferns and sedges came back to life quickly, as green as if it were spring again.

The circle garden was showing some tattered damage from the weather extremes, but somehow looked gloriously lush in the fog.

I was struck by the layers and textures in this photo, so I decided to create a black and white version.

In some ways, I like this one better, as it emphasizes the layers and depth as well as the range from light to dark in this part of the garden. What do you think?

In contrast, the copper corner was a riot of color that required the full spectrum treatment.

Everywhere I walked, everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by notes of beauty. I began to notice the smallest lovely detail and the largest sweep of color and texture. I was walking through a liminal moment in time, the earth balanced between a change in seasons while the fog seemed to stretch and elongate that moment in an otherworldly fashion.

I tried to capture those moments of beauty in the garden with this video, hosted by the inimitable Miss Pixie.

And finally, I was editing photos for this post on my back deck when I suddenly realized that the late afternoon light had changed to a rosy glow. I looked up from the laptop and saw glimpses of a vibrant sunset through the trees. Entranced, I spent the next half hour simply watching the sunset deepen and finally fade. I’m not adept at taking sunrise or sunset photos but my friend Mary Pegher is. With her permission, I’m including one of her stunning images of sunrise over a foggy lake in our nearby county park. Oddly enough, I had asked Mary if I could include her photo in this post a day before I experienced that beautiful sunset. Synchronicity lives. Photo credit: ©Mary Pegher 2025 Used with permission.

I hope you are having a marvelous change of seasons wherever you live and that you find yourself surrounded by moments of beauty in the coming days.

The August garden – imperfectly perfect

Posted on September 6, 2025 by composerinthegarden

The garden in late summer is an odd contradiction of flowers swarmed by feasting pollinators Bumblebees on Echinacea and plants, having fulfilled their seasonal life cycle, now tipping into senescence. Dead leaf caught in grass inflorescence

There is no stopping this process – it is life in the garden and the world, the dynamic of change and imperfection.

One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. . . Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.
~ Stephen Hawking

Without the cycle of organic death and decay, the moss and mushrooms would have no place to grow and thrive.

Mushrooms growing on a mossy log

Tucked in the brown stems of a native iris that bloomed in May, a spider web is strung with drops of rain like a miniature Indra’s Net in the garden.

Long gone is the youthful beauty of June and July, when everything was fresh and colorful. But every day I treasure the richness and wildness of late summer, the garden overflowing with abundance.

The lines of the paths and arches are now blurred by plants freely growing past their boundaries.

Late blooming perennials like the hardy begonia promise fresh new flowers, Hardy begonia buds

while an annual amaranth drapes to the ground with a full season’s worth of bloom. Amaranth flowers

Late summer, more than any other time in the year, contains that full circle of seasons, a crescendo of life well-lived, the ebb and flow of a garden in all its imperfectly perfect beauty. Enjoy this stroll through the garden buzzing with life in August.

I wish you joy in the inherent wildness underlying this season of abundance, growth, and change.

A peaceful woodland garden

Posted on August 8, 2025 by composerinthegarden

There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~Minnie Aumonier

It was only last year that I created my woodland garden yet it is the first place where Pixie and I walk at dawn . . .and the last place where we linger at dusk. The quiet green heart of it draws us in many times a day to meander and explore. The cool shade of the woods has become a refreshing place to escape the intense heat of the sun at midday. Woodland walk after rain

There are so many details to notice, like the red croziers of a lady fern

and the green and black pinwheels of the maidenhair ferns.

Weeks of heavy rains and hot weather triggered lush growth in this young garden, making it look mature beyond its years.

A sturdy copper birdbath added in June has become a centerpiece to the ferns and sedges that flow around it while its water reflects the trees above. All of the plants in this woodland garden are native to our southwest Pennsylvania area, giving me a challenge and an opportunity to play with form, texture and multiple shades of green in an eco-friendly setting.

We moved here over twenty years ago because of the tall trees that surrounded the house – creating a garden at their feet has made them even more treasured. This short video is an effort to capture the atmosphere and beauty that this little woodland garden offers.

I wish you a peaceful place in which to relax and reflect in quiet moments, and if you are a gardener, encouragement to plant a tree and play in its shade.

Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ~John Muir

composerinthegarden

Gardening in harmony with nature

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