We've veered suddenly from lovely early fall weather replete with sun, breezes and mild temperatures to days of unrelenting rain, and now a steep fall in temperature, but the return of the sun. The garden loved the warmth and sun followed by the rain. Everything seemed to perk up, beautifully.

And when the cold arrived, the preceding rain happened to protect tender growing things from feeling too abandoned by departed summer. The giant Dahlias have outdone themselves in size, and that  translates mostly to sturdy stalks that have grown to an absurd height, and plenty of foliage, but a sparsity of blooms. One of the Dahlias has given us plenty of delightful yellow flowers, another two round-petalled pink ones of lesser numbers, while a fourth has finally begun blooming fabulous spear-petalled layers of white-pink blossoms.

The Morning Glories are in their element, and so are the Nasturtiums, both robustly twining over everything else in their close vicinity. The blue of the Morning Glories almost vibrate with translucent colour in the early morning sun. And the variations in gold and orange of the Nasturtiums with their streaks of opposing colour are decoratively appreciated, even while garden standards of fall like Coneflower, Tickseed, Asters, Black-Eyes Susans, Clematis, Hydrangea, Ligularia, Swamp Sunflower and Roses are beginning to fade.

With this cold weather and the threat of overnight frost, however, it's time to think of cleaning up the gardens. And yesterday was as good a day as any to indulge. Both of us got out into the backyard to begin the process, trimming and cutting back perennials, beginning with the peonies and on to the Japanese anemones, the geraniums, the lilies and the iris foliage. While we snipped away and loaded up two large compost bags for an hour while Jackie and Jillie played around us, themselves happily pulling out violets to eat the roots as they're wont to do, we've made barely a start.

It will take many more such days to make any kind of tidying impression for fall on the gardens. And when we've completed that seasonal chore in anticipation of being greeted by a neat and tidy (relatively speaking) garden come spring, attention will be turned to emptying the garden pots of their annuals before too many frosts turn them to mush.   I will collect the potato vine roots, and the begonia bulbs to overwinter in the basement as usual.

And when it's all done, there will be a feeling of relief and accomplishment in readying the gardens for the long winter 'night' of sleep, likely with a comforter of well-seasoned compost over all.