dry ’em while you can

October snuck up on me. While it feels like fall, and is starting to look like fall, I have been too distracted with some minor medical issues (a severe allergic reaction to a recent medication) to notice that summer had officially ended. The roadside goldenrods, sunflowers, and asters are still here, and will probably hang on until first frost which could be any time in the next three weeks. Now is the time to get out in the garden and cut the last of your summer blooms and hang them upside down to dry. Won’t these dahlias look nice as part of a Thanksgiving centerpiece this winter? Dry ’em while you can!

dried pink and white dahlias

growing up together

Yesterday, Steve and I celebrated 37 years of marriage! We got married young; neither of us fully formed. We grew up together; we grew toward each other.

As many of you know, the last couple of years have been bumpy ones for us (not marriage-wise, life-complication-wise). I can’t imagine a better co-captain to navigate with.

They say that choosing the right life partner is one of the biggest factors in determining overall life satisfaction. We got lucky.

Happy Anniversary Stevie! I STILL love you, And always will.

Cheers to 37 Years!

Today, Steve and I are celebrating our 37th anniversary! So I am popping in just briefly. Cheers to long marriages, and heavily veined fall leaves :-)

Smoke bush leaves in autumn (Cotinus)

paused at peak expression

I have been drying the last of the summer blooms as fast I can. I have found that if I put them in my dehydrator on a very low temperature setting, the colors hold. I plan to use these specimens as props in my workshops this winter. I don’t mind letting students manhandle my beautiful collections because they would be mostly faded by next spring anyway. The ephemerality is part of beauty.

assorted dried garden flowers

after 22 years…

We have lived in our house for 22 years. Our driveway is ¼ mile long gravel two-track though three heavily wooded acres. The ground, unfortunately, is heavily choked out by virginia creeper vines. For 21 years, those vines have pretty much gone directly from green to red, with a possible brief week of yellows in between. This year, for the first time I have ever noticed, the vines are going from green to a coral-ly orange, on their way to red. The month of August was a drought here, so perhaps that has contributed. Our new neighbor has waged a personal war on her creeper vines, pulling them every time she sees them. I thought it was a fools’s errand–her Sisyphean effort–but she is having success. I was thinking I might join hew war efforts next year. The creepers must have caught wind, and decided to put on a beautiful fall pageant in order to give me pause.

virginia creeper leaves in autumn (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)