Dry days of sunshine and warmth – hardly typical weather on the west coast in October. The garden is dry and still needs regular watering.  Who has any energy for that anymore?  The garden needs a thorough cleaning up.  I’ve been postponing the removal of my tomato plants, in hopes that more tomatoes will ripen in the sunshine.  Some of the annuals are still pumping out flowers, while others, like the sweet peas, are eking out a last gasp of blooms.  The perennials have had enough.  Some, like the dwarf delphiniums I planted earlier this summer, seem to have disappeared completely.  The back yard is still littered with plums from the tree that lives on the other side of the fence.  The business of picking up plums is an endless one. 

The roses are in transition.  I can see hips on several of my rose bushes. There is one fat red hip on Blanc Double de Coubert, who sets hips grudgingly at best.  A few of the roses are still blooming and producing new buds, but none more exuberantly than Frederic Mistral.  This rose is covered in large fragrant pink blooms.  The perfume wafts over me as I scoop up the plums and pick the tomatoes.  Really, this rose is a monster taking over my tiny rose bed, but it’s hard to argue with blooms and fragrance like that.

I suppose I can’t postpone the cleanup much longer.  It's Thanksgiving weekend, time to truly move forward into autumn.

Shown in the photo: rose hips from Bonica shrub rose, tomatoes, Frederic Mistral rose (top row), impatiens, sweet peas, Russian sage (middle row), oregano and sage, sedum, hardy fuschia (bottom row).