Autumn is here with its glorious colours, giving us one last fantastic show before the green of nature retires for the winter. The sky always appears mixed up in the fall, as though it cannot decide what it wants to be. Deep blue skies and brilliant sunshine compete for dominance with black clouds that linger overhead, giving the earth peculiar highlights.

The birds that frequent the feeders through spring and summer are fewer in number now as many of them have already begun their long journey south. One by one, the annuals fade, their job finished. The perennials slowly prepare for a winter’s rest. The trees and shrubs are dropping their leaves, adding regular raking of the lawn to the list of tasks to be attended to. Roses struggle to produce one last flower before they too sleep away the cold months ahead. Their final bloom is never as spectacular as those in the high season, but more appreciated, as there are few flowers to enjoy in the garden now. The evergreens too are slowing down, their needles taking on an olive tint. The larch is showing off. Its needles are a brilliant gold but too soon they will drop to the ground, to become compost. The earth itself has a different smell in autumn, almost musty, from leaves decaying on rain soaked land. The world becomes quieter in the fall, as though human and animal alike are respecting the need of the green inhabitants for sleep.

Autumn is always a season of conflicting emotions for me. The colours of the leaves, the light from the sun that sits lower in the sky casting longer shadows, the quiet from a slower pace, all combine to give the world a more peaceful glow. The hours spent working outside are easier with the onset of cooler weather. The pace of work is less frenetic making the job even more enjoyable. I love all of those aspects of autumn. But as nature and work slow down, it signals the end of the gardening season, and the end of my work term. That is the sad part of autumn. It is a season of endless goodbyes to the people I have shared my life with on a daily basis for the last seven months. Some I will have the privilege of working with next year, some I will never see again. As nature rests, I too will rest, hibernating from the desolate snow and the cold that is on the way, and dream of spring.