This is how the summer ends

This is how the summer ends - with blues - and with purples - at least, it does in this back garden.

At long last, Dahlias and Monardas are blooming, but the Oxeye Daisies and the back grass have been cut down, and those spider webs on the swing are exposed again.

And although the summer is ending, the trees are still green: the trees that make my garden, essentially, a little clearing in the woods.

Don't believe me?  Then look and see.

The multi-stemmed Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatinus) canopy to the West.

The tangled canopy of Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) which stands to the North.

The regular canopy of the Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) to the South and, behind that, another Acer to the East.

Meanwhile the three trees in one are yet to decide who is going to dominate which aspect yet.

The forest does bring forth forest fruits at this time of year in the shape of blackberries or brambles.

A new blackbird in a new herb garden in a new container all given to me by colleagues at work - betraying my real name.  In the clearing they should do well.

Over by what might loosely be described as a patio in the clearing the Fairies' Thimbles (Campanula cochleariifolia 'Blue Baby') has been flowering all summer.  They are now forming rather attractive seedheads too, sitting nicely above the glaucous foliage of the New Zealand Burr (Acaena buchananii).

Others, I have had to wait patiently for - the Abyssinian Gladiolus (Gladiolus murielae) - has been very shy of flowering for me but those which have now opened are sweetly spectacular blooms to my eye and well worth waiting for.

I'm less sure if the Gayfeather (Liatris spicata) was worth waiting for - maybe these and the Gladioli are not the best plants for a woodland clearing in a cold Scottish summer?  Although it does look quite striking against the White Sage (Salvia apiana) - just not quite on the scale I had envisioned.

The Toad Lily (Tricyrtis formosana), on the other hand, is always worth the wait.  It is only bulking up slowly here, but may prove to be all the more resilient for it.  This is a gem in my eye.

The first of the Cyclamen are also appearing now - this one being Cyclamen hederifolium which after the flowers puts up beautifully decorated foliage that will last through winter into spring.

So, if this is how the summer ends then I have to say I quite like it.  There is a tranquility somehow - or is it just that I am a little more tranquil?  The summer is over, with all its expectations and the pressures that brings.  The pressures?  They are pressures of my own making, pressures from the expectations I have chosen to have.  No one has forced this upon me.


And in the autumn Autumn I choose to go with the flow of the season and that brings a certain peace.

This is how the summer ends.