September? Already?
Summer seems to be our quickest season. Can it be that I’ve been out in the garden watering and pulling weeds for three-and-a-half months? Putting in the new gardens on the south side of the church last May created a maintenance duty that I’ve been able to keep up with, even though I’ve noticed that one or two of the more tender plants didn’t survive the heat spell in August, brief as it was. It was a most unusual summer, with August heat in June and June rains in July. The newly-planted plants enjoyed all the rain… but so did the weeds that always come up more quickly and stronger than anything cultivated.
So now we come to the late-bloomers out there: the Asters... the Rudbeckia (Brown-eyed Susans)... the “Autumn Joy” Sedum… the Russian Sage… Echinacea (Cone Flower)… and the Japanese Anemones (on the south side of the Rectory: worth a stop and a look). This year I found a perennial Chrysanthemum, something I’ve not seen in Vermont. My mother grew them in her side garden at our home in Ohio; they grew three or four feet tall in lovely autumnal colors, blooming in September, her favorite month. I’m hoping they’ll truly return as perennials in years to come. As I write this, they have yet to bloom this season.
Out in the countryside, the lovely early wildflowers have gone by, and the late-summer/early-fall plants have taken their place. The Goldenrod seem especially proliferous this summer, as do the Joe-Pye Weed and the Queen Anne’s Lace, which is one of the longest-blooming of wildflowers. There is a tall sunflower called Helianthus Maximilian that grows six-to-eight feet tall with small blooms, that I've seen growing in the wild as well as in a few country gardens here and there.
September brings with it a break in the heat and humidity that I always welcome. Lesser heat generally means lessened garden duties, allowing more porch time for reading and daydreaming (and a well-earned midday snooze). Soon it will be time to plant Spring bulbs in hopes of a colorful “boyhood of the year” (Tennyson’s description of Spring). But for now, let’s enjoy the waning Summer, looking forward to the crisp air and tinted foliage of Autumn.