Genius

The Man that Can had a flash of genius this week. We have long known that Autumn was his favourite season, but he was overheard this week chatting to the Toad and Bumblebee:

" Autumn is the best season of all...
Surpassed only by Winter.
Which is surpassed only by Spring.
Surpassed only by the Summer.
Which of course is surpassed by Autumn..."

This is one of the trees in our road. The leaves are changing colour, so I thought I would share it with you.

This is The Man That Can's Acer. It lives in what used to be the pond behind the garage. The leaves are taking on quite a vivid shade of purple.

The poppies haven't finished with us just yet. I think this might be a variation of the purple frilly ones that flowered earlier in the season. I suppose as they were grown from seed saved from last year, they are bound to be a little different.

Jacques Cartier is again filling the air with it's sweet scent.

Clematis montana. The last few weeks this has gone crazy. I shan't trim it back just now as I'll end up cutting off all the flowering stems. Instead it can find it's own way. Once it has flowered in the Spring, I'll tidy it up a little more.

Old fashioned Pinks. No cottage garden is complete without them

A bed full of fine foliage and lilac-pink cosmos. You may remember this bed was full of our vegetables not so very long ago.

Butterfly sunning itself on a rock.

And another catching the last drops of nectar from a hebe bloom

The cheeky 'face' of a sunkissed viola flower

The final white dripping fuschias performing their Swan Song.

I thought I'd squeeze this photo in, simply to remind me that although Autumn will soon be swallowed up by Winter, it is not necessarily a drab season. These tiny flower buds belong to the Christmas Box.

Vivid blue flowers of Ceanothus. There are Spring and Autumn flowering varieties of this shrub. I had thought that I'd grown the earlier one, but perhaps it just needs to have a season or two to settle down.