If the abundant asters, Japanese anemones and the newly-revived roses didn’t convince me that it’s fall, the weeds certainly would. Suddenly the crabgrass—scourge of the summer lawn and garden—is gone and the onion grass is back. I took the first tentative strands of it out today, while I was dividing some tradescantia. More will certainly follow, as I know there are large onion-y clumps waiting just below the surface of the back lawn. In another day or so they will make themselves so obvious that it will be impossible to ignore them.
The old religions—Greek, Roman and Norse—all had mischievous gods who played tricks on humans as well as on brother and sister deities. I am quite sure that someone like the mythical trickster Loki thought up the whole idea of onion grass. If I were going to mete out a punishment for that particular offense, I would sentence him to dig up big clumps of it for all eternity armed only with a dull knife.