High Summer...a Gardener's Call to 'Seize the Day'

As August marches along, cooler nights and rain showers are forecast. The garden senses the change and begins to transition from reds and oranges and a wild palette of color to more subdued golds, burgundies and purples. I hate to see the last of the lilies bloom out. There are days we look up and would swear we are seeing an “autumn sky.”

I am not alone in my obsession with transitions. An online search, Autumn Sky, turns up everything from album labels to lyrics and poetry, a painter, alpaca farm, landscape designer and even an outfitter in Maryland. But it is hard to move on without celebrating the garden at its high-summer peak.

As a garden writer, there is something that touches the soul in that subtle unfolding. The garden is more than just a metaphor. It is a living, breathing creature that plays out its life—like so many of the insects that populate it—in a heartbeat of days and months. How wonderful if we gardeners would grasp at the years at our disposal with the same restless energy, determined to flower while we can. The blossoms still cling to the vine. Carpe diem.