Welcome to The Tranquil Garden

I hope you will enjoy the journey I'm starting today. I welcome all your comments and questions on my blog posts and hope you will find my observations about my garden interesting and possibly helpful. I am not an expert (far from it!), so this will be a learning experience all round. I'm planning to do research when questions come up that I can't answer. Frankly, the only reason I feel qualified to write a blog is because anyone can do it! The reason I chose to blog about gardening is because I love it, and I think it's therapeutic to get one's hands (or gardening gloves) dirty by planting things that with luck, educated guesses and a bit of sun and rain, will grow!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Asters!

This was one of those amazing fall days that you just want to exploit for all it's worth. I woke up and thought, maybe I'll go for a run...no, I'll ride my bike...no, I'll work in the garden...no I'll go for a long walk on the mountain... I couldn't pin down what I wanted to do, but it had to be outside! In the end I did a tiny bit of most of the above and was just enthralled with the perfection of the weather. When I finally ended up in the garden at five o'clock, I couldn't get over how wonderful the flowers looked. They were like those aging movie stars who refuse to get work done; instead they age in that sensuous way that some people with good bones and lots of dignity seem to do. You can't stop staring at those people, right? Well, I couldn't stop staring at my fading blooms, either.

However, there are some blooms that are just coming into their prime at this time of year and they include...asters! I remember looking at asters years ago and thinking they were a drab little flower. When they start blooming in the tranquil garden in September however, they are anything but drab. I was probably looking at those small, light blue, unexciting wild asters you see on the side of the road. These ones are the ones you buy to brighten up the deck or yard when your planters are well past their best and you want to toss them and put something else on display. Whatever you do, don't throw out your asters after they have brightened up your deck for a month! Plant them in your garden and they will give you pleasure year after year. The same goes for some of the mums you can buy right now. I have one mum in the garden that has buds all over it. I can't wait to see what colour it is.
Asters and mums are saving my garden and giving it the last excitement before the end of the growing season. I love them!
A note about the colour of these asters. The blue one is actually bright purple in my garden and the pink one is really deep magenta. Not being a photographer, I don't quite know why the photos are coming out the wrong colour. I probably need to adjust something on my camera but I don't know how. I will try to figure it out with some help from my friends and get it right for future posts. At least they're still pretty!

4 comments:

  1. Do not adjust your set! I love Asters, so tidy and confident. Specially like them purple ones. So hey, I'll go with the flow as it felt 'almost' like summer today.

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  2. nice blog Viv! I love gardening...well until I now have a garden that is too big and the only time I have is spent weeding...no time for flowers unless I made it a full time thing....

    your flower colors are not coming out accurately most likely not because of your camera but the settings on your computer...my guess.

    tried to post a photo of a flower here....but alas it does allow that option.

    keep blogging

    Lorae

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  3. Lorae, maybe I can change it so that you can post a flower picture. I'll check into it. Thanks for visiting!

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  4. Asters really say "fall." And speaking of fall, is there a trick to transplanting? Now that the nights are getting colder, is it too risky to move plants around? And can I put in new plants i.e. a shrub (berberis thuns "rosy glow") and have a hope that it will take before the frost? Thanks for your help (and your inspiration).

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