One Long Last Look at the Garden

One Long Last Look at the Garden

As the garden settles into autumn, take time to remember what this season became.

By late September, it is easy to look at the garden and see that the beauty has passed.

The tomatoes are tired. The vines have wandered beyond their boundaries. Most flowers have faded, while others lean heavily beneath seed heads that once held summer blooms. There are weeds to pull, plants to divide, bulbs to order, and plans to make before colder weather arrives.

Before we begin cutting, clearing, correcting, and planning, perhaps the garden deserves one long last look.

Not a quick glance taken while carrying a basket of pruners. Not a mental list of chores made while walking from one bed to another. A true look at what the garden is today—and a remembrance of the beauty and abundance it provided this season.

You may have been growing a garden in this same place for many seasons, but this particular garden has never existed before, and it will never exist in quite this way again.

See the Garden That Is Still Here

By this time of year, we often compare the garden before us with the garden we remember from May or June. We notice what is missing: the peonies have long since disappeared, the roses are no longer at their best, and the tender green of spring has deepened into the heavier colors of autumn.

Yet the late-season garden has a beauty of its own. Let’s take a moment to appreciate its softness and subtle beauty.

Goldenrod catches the afternoon light. Asters open beneath the first turning leaves. Grasses loosen and move with the slightest breeze. Spiders stretch their webs between stems, and the morning dew makes them visible for a little while. The last swallowtails and fritillaries visit the remaining flowers. Goldfinches balance on seed heads, pulling loose one seed at a time.

Even the plants that have finished blooming contribute something to the scene. Their faded stems, curled leaves, and darkened seed heads hold the record of the season that has passed.

The garden is not lesser now. It is simply speaking in a different language, and this is worth taking note of.

If your late-season garden isn’t what you wish it to be, now is the time to notice where you would like to see an extra pop of color. Perhaps an aster could be tucked away at the back corner of the yard, some goldenrod planted down near the mailbox, or a winterberry holly—with its cheerful red berries—placed along the drive. With the abundance of summer color stripped away, it is easier to see where you could place a few late-season beauties.

Take a Mental Photograph

Stand somewhere familiar—in the doorway where you linger in the early mornings with your mug of coffee or tea, beside the garden gate, at the edge of the porch, or near the path you walk most often.

Before taking a photograph with your phone, try to make one with your mind.

Notice where the light falls. Look for the tallest thing in view and the smallest. Pay attention to the colors that remain and the shapes that have appeared as flowers fade. Listen for what is moving through the garden. There may be the sharp call of a blue jay, the low hum of an insect, leaves scraping against one another, or the sound of acorns dropping through the branches.

Then look for the details that belong only to this year.

Perhaps a volunteer sunflower appeared where you never planted one. Morning glory climbed a fence post and tangled itself among the beans. A pumpkin vine escaped the vegetable garden, or a bird planted pokeweed in an inconvenient but surprisingly beautiful place. Maybe a favorite perennial grew wider than expected, while another quietly disappeared.

These are the things we believe we will remember. More often than not, we forget.

In her poem “Death Comes for Summer,” Caroline Confer writes:

“This one belongs only to now.”

If you have a moment, I encourage you to look up this beautiful poem about summer ending. It is one of my favorites.

There will be other summers and other gardens, but never this particular summer again. Never these exact flowers leaning toward this particular light. Never the same arrangement of vines, seed heads, visiting bees, successes, failures, and surprises.

This garden belongs to now. If we do not stop to notice it, the season may pass before we understand what it gave us.

Make a Record of This Year

A garden journal can contain planting dates, rainfall totals, seed varieties, and carefully drawn plans. Those records are useful, but a commonplace book can hold something more.

It can hold the experience of the garden.

Make a quick sketch of one small view. It does not have to be technically correct or especially beautiful. Draw the shape of a leaf, the curve of a seed head, the outline of a flowerpot, or the way a vine has wrapped itself around the fence. A sketch asks us to look longer than a photograph does. It makes us notice where one shape ends and another begins.

Press a final bloom or leaf between the pages of a heavy book. Photograph the garden from the same place each year. Write down the weather, what is flowering, which birds are visiting, and what you hear when you stand still.

Record the things a camera cannot capture: the smell of tomato vines on your hands, the warmth that still rises from a stone path in the evening, the first coolness in the shade, or the sound of dry leaves beginning to collect beneath the trees.

These small records may seem ordinary now. Months from now, they will return us to a day we might otherwise have forgotten.

Remember What Worked

Gardening teaches us through repetition, but only if we remember what happened.

Before the evidence disappears, make note of what worked well this year.

Which flowers bloomed longer than expected? Which plants handled the heat without constant watering? Where did the bees gather? What did the birds visit? Which vegetables earned their place in next year’s garden? Did a plant combination turn out more beautifully than you imagined?

Notice the practical things, too. Perhaps a path needs to be wider, a hose needs a better route, or a bench would be more useful beneath the shade tree. Maybe a perennial planted at the back of the border was too short to be seen, while another grew large enough to overwhelm its neighbors.

Success is not always measured by how much a plant grew or how many flowers it produced. A corner where you wanted to sit counts as a success. So does a garden that brought butterflies close to the window, gave children a place to dig, or provided enough basil to share with a neighbor.

Write these things down while the garden can still remind you.

Be Honest About What Did Not Work

There is no garden without failure.

Seeds do not germinate. Plants are placed in the wrong amount of light. Deer arrive overnight. Rabbits make decisions on our behalf. Summer becomes hotter or drier than expected, and sometimes a plant simply fails for reasons we never discover.

These disappointments belong in the commonplace book, too—but they do not need to be recorded as a list of shortcomings.

Instead, consider what each one may teach you.

Did a plant struggle because it needed more moisture, more shade, or better drainage? Did something require more care than you realistically had time to give? Did you plant too much of one thing and not enough of another? Was there a flower you admired in photographs but did not enjoy in your own garden?

There is freedom in admitting that something did not work. It allows us to stop repeating an unsuccessful choice simply because we believe a good gardener should be able to make it succeed.

A garden is not a test we pass or fail. It is a conversation carried on across seasons. Some years, we understand more of what it is saying than others.

What the Garden Gave

As we consider what worked and what did not, maybe we should ask another question:

What did the garden give?

Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist, author, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, writes in Braiding Sweetgrass about the natural world as a world of gifts—and about reciprocity as our proper response to those gifts.

Gratitude begins with noticing what we have received, but it does not end there. A gift creates a relationship. It asks something of us in return.

The garden gave us flowers, fragrance, shade, food, and beauty. It offered places for bees to forage, birds to feed, and caterpillars to grow. It may have given us rest on a difficult afternoon, conversation with a neighbor, or the quiet satisfaction of watching something planted by our own hands come into bloom.

What did we give in return?

Perhaps we improved the soil, removed harmful species, planted something native, shared a handful of tomatoes, or allowed a seed head to remain for the birds. Perhaps we learned to use a little less water or to tolerate a few chewed leaves. Perhaps our gift was simply our attention—the willingness to know the garden more fully and care for it more thoughtfully.

When we plan next year’s garden, we might ask not only, What do I want the garden to give me? but also, What will I give back?

Leave Something to Return To

It is tempting to make every decision about next year while this year’s disappointments are still fresh. But autumn does not require us to solve everything at once.

For now, make notes.

Circle the questions that need more thought. Draw an arrow where another shrub might be planted. Write down the name of the flower you want to try. Mark the place where the light was especially beautiful or where a chair might belong.

Then leave some room on the page.

Winter may change your mind. A book may introduce you to a plant you have never considered. A seed catalog may arrive in January and awaken an entirely new idea. What seems like failure now may look different after a season of rest.

The purpose of keeping a record is not to control the garden. It is to give ourselves something to return to when the time for dreaming and planning begins again.

The notes we make now will become a conversation with our future selves.

They will remind us that the coneflowers bloomed longer than we remembered, that the tomatoes needed more sun, that the hummingbirds came often to the scarlet bee balm, and that on one late-September afternoon, the whole garden turned golden just before the sun went down.

Perhaps that is reason enough to stop and look.

Before we tidy the beds and turn our thoughts toward next year, we can give this garden the dignity of being noticed. We can admire what it became, thank it for what it offered, and preserve a few small pieces of the season—on paper, between pages, in photographs, and in memory.

There will be another spring. There will be another summer.

But this garden belongs only to now.

For Your Own Commonplace Book

Choose one view of your garden, porch, neighborhood, or usual walking route. Sit quietly with it for ten minutes before writing anything.

Record:

• The date, time, and weather

• What is blooming

• What is going to seed

• What is visiting

• What you can hear

• What is beginning to change

• Three things that worked well this year

• One thing that surprised you

• One thing you may reconsider next year

• One moment from this season that you want to remember

Add a sketch, photograph, pressed bloom, fallen leaf, seed packet, or a few words describing the colors around you.

Then finish these sentences:

I noticed…

I had forgotten…

The garden gave me…

In return, I can…

This year taught me…

When the next season comes, I want to remember…