Apprentice yourself to nature. Not a day will pass
without her opening a new and wondrous world of
experience to learn from and enjoy.
– Richard W. Langer
This quote defines my blog completely. I started to write down my garden lessons as I learned them from my garden and nature. As I opened my eyes, ears, heart and soul to this adventure, I have never been disappointed or left for something to write about. This last month in the garden was warmer and drier for the most part, but due to work obligations, I was unable to get out and do much of anything except observe and take pictures.
With the first freeze/frost many flowers were lost, but many were bravely blooming until we had a week of cold weather. So what
has been left are the remnants of the wondrous garden of 2012. So I thought I would share these memories from the garden that was, as I link in with Carol@May Dream Gardens for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day on the 15th; Pam@Digging for her Foliage Follow Up on the 16th, and Christina@Creating my own garden of the Hesperides for her Garden Bloggers Foliage Day on the 22nd. I will also share a few garden lessons from the autumn garden as I join in with Beth@PlantPostings for her Garden Lessons Learned meme.
Before I begin though, I thought I would look back at my Seasonal Celebrations mantra for autumn. I find it helpful to see if I was able to stay on track during the last season.
My autumn mantra was:
While work and garden chores will keep me very busy this fall, I must find time to go within and seek that inner peace the fall garden evokes, bask in its warmth and soft glow and find time to slow and enjoy nature and my garden.
The remains of my tall rudbeckia tired of blooming.
This non-native Mediterranean plant, Centranthus ruber or red valeria, continues to bloom until multiple freezes stops it cold.
This sunny cheery flower is a cultivar of the native pontentilla shrub. It’s called Mango Tango and it loves to keep shooting out blooms now as well as throughout the fall.
Joe Pye is a great flower especially as it sets up its seeds to send around the garden. They sparkle in the light as if frosted.
Here is some late fall foliage. All the leaves are finally gone:
There is no better native fall/winter shrub than red twig dogwood. It’s bark is a mainstay in my winter garden and the only color I see for months sometimes. The foliage is an added bonus as it fades in a rainbow of colors. The birds devoured the berries it produced months ago.
This is a native swamp rose I planted this fall. I already adore the fall foliage and can’t wait to see it blossom.
Don’t you just love the native hardy geraniums. The foliage is so striking and lasts well into late fall.
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As I think about the fall season and what I have learned from my garden, I am taken back to spring and summer where nothing seemed normal. Then I found these wonderful quotes about learning and the garden that spoke volumes for me. Plants grew sooner and longer than others, others never bloomed and still others acted normally. But when I stepped back into watching nature and the signs it provided, I found I was more successful with my gardening.
The gardener who imagines that his work can be reduced to a set of rules and formulae, followed and applied according to special days marked on the calendar, is but preparing himself for a double disappointment. Few things are so certain to be uncertain as the seasons and the weather; and these, rather than a set of dates, even for a single locality, form the signs which the real gardener follows. That is the great trouble with much book and magazine gardening.
– Frederick Frye Rockwell, Around the Year in the Garden, 1917
The more one gardens, the more one learns; And the more one learns, the more one realizes how little one knows.
– Vita Sackville-West
Great News:
Last year in December, I posted my award winning short story memoir about The Night I Saw Santa. Just recently I was contacted by the editors of the website Women’s Memoirs that sponsored the memoir contest. They are writing an ebook and have asked to include my memoir. Yes was my immediate answer. I would love to be included as it is a great honor to be included in anything these ladies do. My original memoir included a family recipe which I will be illustrating in photos for the ebook. For all you wonderful supporters, I will let you know when it is available. What an incredible Christmas gift I have been given. Thank you Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett. If you have never visited their website, I encourage to do so.
Come Join Us:
Seasonal Celebrations is a time for marking the change of seasons and what is happening in your part of the world during this time. I hope you will join in by creating a post telling us how you celebrate this time of year whether winter or summer or something else. Share your traditions, holidays and celebrations in pictures and words.
And it seems so appropriate to collaborate with Beth and her Lessons Learned meme. What lessons have you learned this past season of autumn here in the North and spring in the South. Then tell us about your wishes, desires and dreams for this new season.
The rules are simple. Just create a post that talks about lessons learned and/or seasonal celebrations. If you are joining in for both memes please leave a comment on both our blog posts. Or if you are choosing to join only one meme, leave a comment on that blog post. Make sure to include a link with your comment.
Beth and I will do a summary post of our respective memes on the solstice (around the 21st of December). And we will keep those posts linked on a page on our blog. Your post should be linked in the weekend before the solstice to give us enough time to include your post in our summary. And if you link in a bit late, never fear we will include it on the special blog page (which I still have to create). The badges here can be used in your post. So won’t you join in the celebration!!
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Next up on the blog: Next Monday will be time to share another favorite Garden Book. Seasonal Celebrations will be revealed on the 
21st and I will have a special Christmas post on the 24th. I will have my last native plant for the final installment of Simply The Best and Dozen for Diana@ Elephant’s Eye on the 26th.
I will be linking in with Michelle@Rambling Woods for her Nature Notes meme. It is a great way to see what is happening in nature around the world every Wednesday.
I hope you will join me for my posts once a month at Beautiful Wildlife Garden. See my most current post now.
As always, I’ll be joining Tootsie Time’s Fertilizer Friday.
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