One of our neighbours remarked admiringly a few days back how good our gardens still look this late in the season; fresh and colourful. Compared to what? I asked myself, while responding with a thanks but rebutting his perception (not meaning to seen churlish, just relieving myself of my own impressions).

With my own remarks on how disappointing the gardens have turned out to be this summer. I've noticed that generally speaking most gardens, like our own, looked pretty exhausted, and anything but colourful. A certain amount of that should be expected at this time of year when late-blooming perennials still labour to pepper the garden with colour, while annuals continue to pump out their floral displays.

This year, unlike all others past that I can recall, the annuals have long since seen their better times, and the perennials are struggling to put some colour into a monochromatic scene of greenery. Green, we have lots of it, in various shadings.

It's the foliage that has done well, not the flowers, this year. And in a sense, that's kind of odd. There's been a lot of rain, so much that we have hardly had to water the gardens, the garden pots and floral urns; nature has done that for us.

There's also been no deficit of sun, since we've had plenty of that too, the sun beaming down hot and bright just as we're accustomed to seeing it in the summer months. So it's a bit of a mystery.

Our tomato plants have rendered few fruit, despite an initial burst of offerings. There's been runaway growth on the vine-and-leaf portion of the plants, though. And it's only now, fairly late in the growing season that they've been covered with flowers. There won't be time, I'm certain, for the fruit to develop and ripen before real fall with frosty nights kick in. We've already had intimations of their onset.

So, it's a bit of a puzzle. Aside from which we enjoy and admire whatever the gardens continue to entertain us with; winter remains a way off, yet.