Autumn is a busy and sensual time. Eyes are tempted by gorgeous, vibrant hues and grand landscape images that demand to be devoured at once. Ears are nearly overwhelmed with the urgent chirping of crickets, the tweeting of birds and, above all, the harmonies created by autumn winds. As the tips of the maple, beech and ash begin to curl and turn to lustrous autumn hues, a gentle autumn breeze whistles through the fine leaves of the white pine, creating sweet orchestral tones that lure the ear away from the other sounds of autumn.

The Day arrived early this year, you know, the day you decide you can’t take it anymore, the day it seems absolutely imperative that perennials be cut back, annuals be pulled out and the garden put to rest for the winter months. The Day turns into several days, due both to the scale of the garden and to the amount of discouraging work the gardener can tolerate. It’s not so much that the work itself is discouraging, it’s the witnessing of glorious beauty in decline that is at once sobering and saddening.

Yes, it seems impossible that a garden that looked so glorious a month ago could look so desperate now. As I pull, clip, drag and hoist plants and their assorted parts, I have to periodically focus on plants like helenium, great lobelia, devil’s bit scabious and pearly everlasting that are still in a magnificent state. If I looked at plants like bee balm, completely defoliated by powdery mildew, but still bursting with several happy red blooms, I’d cry. “Don’t you realize what’s going on below?” I want to wail to the innocent blooms that top the sad silver mildew-coated stems. Then again, maybe it’s best they not know. Best that they bloom without questioning their fate.

As annuals are yanked and piled high by the compost bin awaiting their destiny with the shredder, rouge milk thistles poke through the soil beneath where the annuals grew. I can almost hear their shock when I pull away their cover. Those dreaded thistles thought they were getting away with something by masking their identity with the lush and unsuspecting green canopy of the showier plants! The wretched spines of the thistle that protrude from every inch of the leaves’ edges poke through holes in my season-worn gloves, sneak through the stitched seams and lash out at bare wrists. Dreaded things. The more they poke me, the greater my resolve to eradicate every cell of their being. “Overwhelming task. Pointless goal,” my reasonable side says with swift clarity. “Doable! Keep working,” my hardier and optimistic side replies.

Some of this pulling and yanking makes me feel a bit guilty. A volunteer yellow pear tomato spent its summer gleaning nutrients from the fertile soil. One tiny little seed produced a gigantic vine – a magnificent testimony to nature’s ability, and yank!, with one great pull, a season’s worth of gleaning has ended. “Had to be done,” my practical side says. “How sad and awful,” my other side whimpers.

Do I seem to complain? Really I’m not. My problem is that my mind works twice as hard and fast as my body sometimes. I think, think, think about all the work and all the implications of just one simple task. “Let the tomato plant live!” my mind screams. “The tomato has to go! It’s done! It’s the end of the season! How merciful can you be?” it screams back.

Oh, it makes me weary before I even start to work. Rather then tend to my garden duties, I’d really rather lie beneath a giant pine in the cushy fallen amber needles. I’d like to look up through the crisscrossed branches, pillowing my head with thistle-laden palms and listen to the wonderful harmonies of fall. I want to send every thought of work beyond the reaches of my mind.

Ah, it’s no use. The pitch would drip into my hair and the ants from yonder hill would crawl into my socks. It’s back to the garden! Nose to the grindstone. Ears to the gusting autumn wind above. Eyes to the changing hillsides miles away. And mindful that this gardening is a conscious choice that offers constant and worthwhile reflection, even if nature’s fiercest battlegrounds are within the confines of our own minds.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.