It's coming

Yes, I know that the excitement that comes with fall flowers and falling temperatures is a cliche of autumn, but there are reasons why some cliches exist, and seasonal change, at least this one, is a delight. (I'm not so keen on late November morphing into winter, and the mud season that precedes actual spring.) Even with the anticipation of spring and the delights of full summer, there is just something about the sheer plant mass of autumn, with everything trying to get in one last hurrah, that makes me happy. Even plant thugs like pokeweed

and aromatic aster look good. (This particular poke is higher than our house and generally full of birds, and

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium is attempting to colonize the entire yard--but it will have purple daisies into November.) 

Blue mist flower (our native eupatorium coelestinum) has come into its own, with the seedheads of a disobedient obedient plant giving hope that next year we might have pink spikes in among the blue mist.

"Fireworks" goldenrod (solidago rugosa) is much better behaved than common goldenrod, though I must admit that the plant has gotten much larger than the catalog descriptions indicated. This size, however, allows it to make a dramatic combination with "Dart's Gold" physocarpus

and a large (as in taller than I), enthusiastic New England aster.

And as if we weren't having enough autumn excitement, the neighbor's dogwood berries are turning red, a harbinger of the fall migration of songbirds, and sedum "Autumn Joy" is getting its first flush of pink.

Cue happy sigh.