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Saturday, October 29, 2011

Is this the end?

Is this the end of autumn?

Yesterday, when I heard snow was coming, I went out to look at the garden in the sunny morning light. Good that I did. When I woke this morning, a heavy, wet snow was falling. It continued all day, and with leaves still on, trees are coming down everywhere, many across roads. The landscape will surely be marked by this early snow storm for years to come.

The energy visible in these plantings is almost electric. Though it was a sad sight to see the flattened garden in this afternoon's dim light, I know next spring will bring it all back.







































18 comments:

  1. I like your happy ending, James. The garden is gorgeous in the morning light. The seating area is especially inviting. We got about 18" of snow here in New Hampshire but thankfully we didn't lose power.

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  2. I'm so glad you took these photos and shared them. Wonderful. Hope the storm didn't cause too much damage to your trees.

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  3. Have just found your blog - what a beautiful garden. Those grasses surely will be tough. Hoping that no-one suffers too much in your freak weather.

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  4. Wonderful, wonderful images James. Thank you.
    I hope that the storm will not have done too much lasting damage
    K

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  5. It's always sad when trees are downed. All that age, gone.

    Your garden looks glorious. The inflorescences have it!

    The seating looks very convivial.

    I'm sorry this season seems to have come to an abrupt end. Time to light the woodburner and enjoy winter.

    Just as I'm witing this comment, one eye on the TV weather forecast, seems that large depression that dumped all your snow is due to track across the Atlantic, grind to a halt just west of Europe and pull up an unseasonably mild southerly flow and dump large amounts of rain.

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  6. Denise, I await return to the country in a couple of days to see if there's much damage to our trees. My only wish is, if there is much damage, the whole tree just comes down. (That's common enough in our area of shallow soil underlain by rock.) Too hard, and expensive, to trim broken limbs high up.

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  7. Thanks, Rob. It's interesting to hear our weather will be at your doorstep. Hope you need rain (I recall you've had drought this past summer).

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  8. It's good you could get these pictures before the snow fell. Fall is beautiful in your garden. I am glad we were well out of the way of this storm, at least snow-wise. We had a lot of rain, which we needed, and high winds and moderate flooding tides. I hope none of your more special trees were damaged.

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  9. All looking good old chap. Magic, Murder and the weather.

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  10. Daydream Believer, fortunately my garden is mostly herbaceous perennials, so though it may b e flat now, it will return in spring.

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  11. Karen, I hope there's no lasting harm. Some trees were literally on the ground. Willows can be coppiced and return in a year or two. The birches are my main concern, though they probably will spring back if the snow melts quickly in our relatively warm temperatures. Thanks for the visit.

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  12. William,
    Ha! Magic, murder and weather, weather, weather. Yes!

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  13. Les, I was glad to get those final pictures. They're such clear evidence of the differences in backlighting vs. frontal lighting. Also some of the limits of the camera. There is (was) a lot of Aster tartaricus in flower and its color is beautiful with the fall yellows, browns, greys, and golds, but I've never been to get a camera to capture that blue. Glad you got the rain you needed.

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  14. Yes, it's all glowing, James. Or was! Wouldn't you just like to stop time sometimes, or slow it down a bit? You really have a great deal to take into account, when your garden experiences such changes.

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  15. Faisal, I might like to slow time a bit, but not necessarily for gardening reasons. It's had a good season, and if it weren't wet and sloshy, I'd like to burn it all down now and have a clear plate to look at until next spring.

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  16. Why burn it down? Methinks you will be destroying a valuable season in doing so.

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  17. Only if it's irreperably squashed. But it will be too wet to burn--until we pass through the dry, freezing weeks of deep winter.

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  18. Beautiful images, sad to know that everything has been flattened by early snow. Thank goodness for the resilience of plants, hope you won't have too much debris to clear up from snow damage.

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