Last Flowers and Insects in a Forest Garden

I took these photographs two weeks ago, on a sunny autumnal day before the first frosts came.

Underneath a bird feeder, where Nyjer Seed had dropped last spring, some of the seeds germinated. Several tall, straggly plants grew there through the summer, looking like ungainly members of the willow herb family, until the flowers began to appear. Cheerful yellow, daisy-like flowers starred the plants for weeks, attracting bees and other insects. I think that the insect below is one of the false bees. A fly that mimics a honey bee.

Up in the hedge, yellow ivy flowers were attracting insects. An iridescent green bottle fly.....

.......a wasp sunbathing on a leaf....

....... and honey bees and false bees vied for position as they searched for nectar.

A small fly visited an open Peace Rose.

The Liquid Amber Tree`s leaves glowed in shades of red against a blue sky.

A late , pink cranesbill geranium opened its buds .....

....companion-planted marigolds flowered their last in the cleared, raised vegetable beds.......

Grandpa Dixon enjoyed the morning sun......

........and the last nasturtiums tangled over flower beds .

Yesterday, I cleared their wilting, frozen plants away for another year, but I know that seeds will have been sown and that another generation waits in the soil to begin again next spring.