The cooler weather comes as a welcome surprise. We all believed this heat would never end! Now is the time to enjoy the wonderful colors, the harvests, planting bulbs and planing for next year.

You ought to know that October is the first Spring month. Karel Capek

T'is the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone.
Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, The Last Rose of Summer.

Windflower - note the tiny spider (upper left)

Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.  George Eliot

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Hearts 'a Busting - American Eunoymous

A honey bee pushing into a toad lily as far as he can to get the last pollen bits.

I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
W. S. Merwin,  The Love of October

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on. "
Emily Dickinson

A pretty dragonfly poses for her picture

White Towers - Toad Lily

Hairy Toad Lily just ready to open
Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart.  Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

For more information, contact: rose@DunwoodyGardenClub.com