Autumn garden recovering from summer

Autumn flowers: chrysanthemums, mums, marigolds

I gave up on my all my gardens two months ago. It was obvious then, that this was going to be a hopeless summer for gardens. First the drought fried almost every plant, making them look more like fried bacon than a flower bed. Then along came the hurricanes which whipped and shredded any semblance of organic material left on the plants. All these circumstances delivered me to the feet of other gods, I completely ignored the garden for other interests. Watercolor paints came out of the storage boxes, Impressionist style of painting caught my focus, and I experimented and fussed over paintings instead of gardens. It was just too painful to see all of my garden work disintegrated under the stress of the drought. Acceptance was the only route to take, or devastation would have set into my psyche.

crape myrtle

self seeded crape myrtle

pentas

portulacas

Sedum Autumn Joy

dead crape myrtle

Jump ahead two months to yesterday. By happenstance I walked down the brick walk on the other side of the house, the side I have carefully avoided for the last two months because it was too painful to see my plants palely anemic.  About two weeks ago I noted a self seeded purple Crape Myrtle (above) blooming in one of the beds, that was a plus. My primary purple one (at left) had officially croaked after a slow deterioration over the last three years. So good, I now have a replacement...the summer wasn't a total bust.  Yesterday the first thing to hit my eyes were the purple Morning Glories.  The hummingbirds love the Glories, so that gave me some encouragement that the hummers will hang around for a while. Today I saw at least four different ones. Last year's gang stayed until October 11, the lastest date ever...maybe this year's bunch will stay until October too. I really enjoy those little creatures, and I want them to stay around as long as possible. The more flowers around, the more interested they should be in hanging around my garden....in fact now that I found these flowers blooming, I figure it is part of why they still are here. Next I found a bunch of blooming red Portulacas, in facts lots of different color Portulacas (above right) , red Pentas,(above left) pink Phlox (bottom left) and Sedum (above right) too. Then there is the beautiful bed of vari-colored chrysanthemums (seen at top) splattered all over a seven foot bed creating an Impressionistic painting along my walkway. Simply spectacular. Well, as you can tell, I was pretty shocked by the magic recovery of my garden. Yup, I'm pretty thrilled, and there is more to come. I saw the future in the tight buds popping up all over the place! Lots more Fall blooms when I write next...

phlox