FALL BEGINS
Fall is a time when many gardeners feel a little sad. The gardening season is winding down, the cycle of growth has slowed and the days are shortening. Staying out in the garden until eight o’clock on a glorious weekend day now means that you will end up weeding in the dark. The supply of flowers in the beds and borders is beginning its annual decline as the early asters and anemones finish blooming. I already miss summer’s abundance.
For those of us who spent the rainy summer days living vicariously through the glossy spreads in garden magazines, there is another sharp realization. Most of those magazines reduce their publication schedules to every other month or even less frequently during the winter. Unless you have a warm greenhouse or conservatory, horticultural comfort gets a lot harder to come by.
Lately, when I’ve talked to other local gardeners, I’ve heard a hint of regret that goes beyond the usual fall malaise. Spring and summer were gloomy this year, with rain almost every day in some weeks. Everything that was susceptible to fungal disease got fungal disease and it was a banner year for powdery mildew, botrytis and black spot. Tomatoes rotted on the vines, strawberries ripened into pink, watery blobs and ornamental plants responded to the dreary weather by cutting back on flower production. Everything alive yearned to see the sun. Of course absolutely no one had to water anything, but that was faint comfort.
So what’s to be done? Dwelling on lost opportunities and flowers that didn’t flourish is unproductive. With the exception of those occasions when gardeners say things like, “The garden looks pretty good now, but you should have seen it last week,” we are generally optimists who look ahead rather than behind. I am trying to adopt a Zen-like attitude and let things go–even the sad memory of all those water soaked iris and balled-up roses.
We should all remember that the rain has finally let up and annuals, roses and other repeat blooming plants are still with us and working hard. I have an over zealous gaillardia that has been covering itself in golden yellow daisy-like flowers for the last two weeks. Mint family members like catmint and salvia are growing vigorously. The lemon-scented agastache that I put in earlier in the summer is showing every sign of starting another cycle of bloom. The purple-leafed perilla is flowering exuberantly and will soon take another step on the route to total garden domination by setting large quantities of seed. The roses are sprouting new canes as if they have no inkling that the growing season is winding down, not gearing up. Right now I can still gather enough roses to make a rose bouquet without any “filler” flowers and foliage. This won’t continue for a month as it does in May, but it’s good enough for right now.
And that’s the key to the whole thing–good enough for right now. Fall is about living in the moment in the garden. The silver lining in the cloud of seasonal decline is that the lawn grass and weeds have also slowed their growth, giving most gardeners a short but significant window of opportunity to relax and enjoy the scenery before the autumn leaves need raking. Just for today the butterflies are still here, the goldfinches are still eating the seeds from the spent coneflowers and tomatoes on indeterminate-type plants are still ripening. Being an optimist, I am not willing to resort to fried green tomatoes yet. With another month of decent weather, I can have more red ones.
But optimistic doesn’t mean unrealistic. This weekend I will start bringing the vacationing houseplants inside and tucking the amaryllis in for their annual siesta in the darkest part of the cellar. I’ll contemplate the paperwhite offerings in the catalogs, so I am not caught flowerless during the winter. I have already hung up many big pink flowerheads from the peegee hydrangea, so that I will have plenty for winter arrangements.
I once heard the period prior to World War I described as Europe’s “golden afternoon.” Taking garden-related matters day by day in October allows me to enjoy the season’s “golden afternoon” without worrying about the winter night to come.