Fall is full of surprises. We design for winter structure, spring color and summer bounty, but fall garden highlights are as often unexpected as planned: bright ginkgo leaves in a perfect circle after a windless frosty night, the new-to-us salvia that waited until November to bloom, delicious, warm light filtering through seedheads on clear days and droplets on petals on rainy days. We embrace the chaos, allowing plants to drape, intertwine and gather the last of the fading sunlight. Soon enough, we'll begin the final fall rite of pruning and cutting back - putting the gardens to bed for winter. Below is a selection of fall photos from our phones. They aren't portfolio-quality shots, but perhaps they'll give you a sense of what we love about this season.

Fall gardens in all of their unpredictable glory. The final images of a very late cardoon flower and an early hellebore bloom were taken on the same day in the same garden.