By the time hard frosts show up, sometime in fall, I'm ready to take a break from the garden. This year was especially problematic, because I was exhausted much of August, following my return from Gathering, and then very busy indeed once the school year started at the beginning of September, so I did very little after July. But I did manage to take some pictures of these mums, which I had earlier divided and moved around to various spots, since I liked the color.

magenta chysanthemums, 18sep07.

This was one of the more successful clumps. I actually pinched them back, if not often enough, so they bloomed a little early, but not too badly: some of the leaves from the native primrose (finally blooming after serious summer long depradations from truly appalling levels of japanese rose beetles, which love primroses even more than their namesakes) are turning a bit, with reddish tinges that, along with the ripening joe-pye weed (yeah, Autumn Joy) echoes the color in the mums. Lemon yellow woodland sunflowers, at their peak, and crayola (orangish) yellow black eyed susans, tailing off, along with bright pink phlox, which kept blooming and reblooming, so long as I kept deadheading, bracket the magenta color scheme; and one last petal from a red monarda adds a touch of spice.

And now I'm ready to start gardening again:) Well, at least start looking at gardening catalogs, anyway.

These mums are located in the half-curve bed to the right of the round bed. F4.0, 1/43rd sec, -0.3ev, iso50, coolpix 8400, shot 16:40, 14sep07 (directory created 18sep). File created 9jan08.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.