Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the Earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot
I have always loved autumn, with its cooler temperatures and crisp golden days. There were many mornings this past week where walking in the garden felt magical, the low light sifting amber through the leaves. 
The flowers of PG Hydrangea ‘Limelight’ have turned a soft pink 
yet still play host to sleeping bumblebees. 
The oak trees have been putting on a brilliant display this year, hung like jewels against vivid blue skies. 
It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.” ~Diana Gabaldon
But there was also a few foggy days that brought out the more subtle colors of autumn.(click on any photo to see the full size version)
Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love – that makes life and nature harmonise. ~George Eliot
The leaves have been falling for days. I set my coffee cup down for a moment in order to take a photo and it was covered in leaves within moments. 
The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground . . . ~George Eliot
The coleus and other annuals have became gigantic displays of warm color surrounding the house and deck
while a few roses bloom their last flowers of the season.
Pixie has been the real star of the garden this year, racing through the woods and tracking my every step through the garden, gracefully posing for the camera. 
She is featured in a little film I made of the autumn garden, working her way into the path of the camera with ease.
The leaves continue to drift down, in a few days the trees will be bare and the ground covered. Until then, I celebrate the garden as it completes its final dramatic act of the season.
The leaves as they spark into wild color just before they die are the world’s oldest performance art . . . ~Shauna Niequist
(All text, photos, and video @2022 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved, except where noted.)
I’ve had my hands in the dirt (well, dirty gloves) all summer, leaving little time to write or share until now. 
In July, my garden was on a garden tour to benefit a local library and I taught a class in it for 
amid a new set of glass globes in the blue garden. 
I suspected last year that there would come a day in the garden when the loss of Angel Eyes would strike me suddenly. It happened while I was photographing this arbor of roses – I have many years of photos of Angel standing under the arbor – she loved the scent of the roses and always paused here to smell them. Suddenly the arbor was empty without her 
with only fallen petals to mark her favorite spot on the path. 
I had to put my camera away for the day but the next morning, Pixie insisted on staying near me, “helping” me to pot up flowers on the deck and making me laugh again. 
There was no hurry or bustle this morning, just a task completed here and another one begun there with no sense of a clock ticking or a checklist to follow. Time was instead measured by new flowers opening, the sudden low buzz of a hummingbird passing, and the occasional visit from a fat bumblebee.
The spring bulbs have finished for the season – one final blossom of the summer snowflake (Leucojum aestivum) lingers among the ferns.
Allium and Camassia, the bulbs of May, come forward to have their say in shades of purple and blue while Lilac ‘Miss Kim’ is just starting to bloom. (Click on any photo to see the full size image)
The rain has transformed the garden into a lush paradise ready to burst into a new round of blooms and the woods are beginning to take on hints of their green cloaks of summer. 
I remember visiting the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. with my mother to see the Curtiss-Wright fighter plane that she contributed to in her work. The wartime efforts of the women Cadettes have finally gained recognition in the past few years (see linked article above) as an important precursor to the STEM movement.
The next evening, Bill and I took our pup Angel to visit her – while Angel ran into her room and kissed her hand, Bill brought his acoustic guitar and sat beside Mom’s bed, quietly improvising beautiful music. Although she couldn’t open her eyes or move much, she smiled when she heard the guitar and I could feel her relax. As we sat in the dark together, the room overflowed with light and love and we sensed her letting go. She passed peacefully the next day and when I left the hospice for the last time, the bird song outside was so beautiful that I stood to listen to the evensong of the day and of her life. 
composerinthegarden 