Month: October 2026

Making Room For Renewal

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There was a rhyme I loved as a little kid, about Jack Frost flitting through the trees in October, splashing them with color from his paintbrush. I couldn’t help but notice that some trees changed color without a frost, but I liked the story anyway. For one thing, it explained why the color was so splotchy, so haphazardly applied. For another, I was prone to spattering colors from my own brush when I painted. Jack Frost made this aspirational.

In my yard now the red of one maple seems to be making a nice segue into the gold of another, Jack mixing pigments on his palette. Did he run out of paint before he got to the lower leaves? Did he get distracted by the sky? He gets no credit for the sky. 

The dogwood, ivory-cupped star of the spring and red-berried birdfest of late summer, has another trick up its sleeve: an embarrassment of riches, reds, reds, and more reds. Jack must have made several trips for that one. Untouched trees behind it lend extra depth. 

But Jack did not have total artistic license. Some colors obviously went with some trees: orangey reds on the sugar maples, yellow in the wild black cherries. The trees in the yard where I grew up were mostly oaks, and only the pin oaks went in for color. The others could charitably be called yellow, but khaki was more like it. They went on from there to brown, and did not fall off till new leaves pushed them out of the way, in spring. I’m sure the squirrels appreciated the winter shelter.

While the deciduous oaks held their leaves for winter, the evergreen pines are more mysterious. The green groundcover in this photo is mountain mint, green until frost, brown through the winter, and green again in spring. Overhead in the trees all is green, too, but fine brown needles drift down and pile up on the ground underneath. Careful inspection shows that these are the needles farthest back on every branch, ceding the work of staying green to new growth at the tips. Being evergreen requires continual renewal, like the re-telling favorite stories. Like the story of Jack Frost.

Companions, Communities

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Michigan sits under both the Atlantic and the Mississippi Flyways, and in spring and fall many migrants pass through. So when, sitting by the window to write, I noticed movement at the birdbath, I thought exotic species might be involved. But no – it was the local community, sparrows and finches, diving, bathing, drinking, and generally disporting themselves at the spa. Whatever the birds were feeling, it looked joyful to me. Chickadees showed up and were admitted; blue jays showed up, and all the other birds left. Were the jays aggressive, or did they just take up too much space?

This year I tried a lot of companion plantings, with mixed results. The basil among the tomato plants did really well while the tomatoes did not, but local gardeners without basil also had poor tomato crops. The radishes among the squash might have helped, except a rabbit got into the garden and ate all the squash leaves. Having some extra Queen Sophia Marigold seeds, I tossed them into the edge of the zinnia and cosmos bed. Tall varieties of zinnias and cosmos tend to flop, then grow in zany angles as their leading edges stand back up. But well, look at this – the marigolds held the zinnias and cosmos up straight. Where there were no marigolds they keeled over. 

My usual approach to companion planting is to shove a lot of flowerpots together and hope they riot well in each other’s company. Many of my flowers have resigned from blooming, as shade from the house advances over them, but this part of the deck still gets some sun. The nasturtiums and marigolds soldier on while the cosmos droops gracefully over them. Maybe next year I’ll boost some marigolds up into the cosmos pot, for support.

As color drains from the flowerpots, the burning bush begins lighting up. It’s said to be invasive, and it probably would be if the critters in my yard would leave it alone. It’s a favorite for topiary among the deer, and its berries are loved by the birds. Its proper name is euonymus, which means well-named. Which is a little weird, since “well named” sounds like they know we’ll really call it “burning bush,” a well-fitted name.

Red and gold are typical autumn colors, but I’m partial to the blues and purples of asters, which also come out in the shortening days. I’ve tried for years to get them to establish in my yard. They bloom so late in the season, I thought maybe I was accidentally weeding them out in their early growth. But here they are this year, popping up all over – everywhere I strewed seeds that never germinated or placed a plant that failed to thrive, at last here they are, suddenly flourishing. The grace of the garden. I’m going through the yard putting in plant markers at each clump, so I’ll recognize them as they come up again next year. I want them to become a regular part of my garden’s community, and it’s so easy to mistake the nature of things that are still developing.