Purple summer send-off

Catching my eye today as I was cutting the lawn was a showy purple perennial that was pulsating with living color, enhanced by late afternoon sunshine and hundreds of honey bees in a mad scramble to collect an autumn cache of pollen to last the winter.

Of course right away I’m thinking Chrysanthemums until I check with Victoria and Google. It seems this variety is the Michaelmas daisy, or aster, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, at least for the next few days, as it ushers in fall.