“By all these lovely tokens, September days are here. With Summer’s best of Weather. And Autumn’s best of cheer.” �
— Helen Hunt Jackson
By noah salt
Meanwhile, Out In The Garden
As September’s air cools and days shorten, it’s time to get a jump on your autumn cleanup, trimming off dead foliage and raking the refuse of summer into piles for bonfires or to use in compost piles. Apples ripen and reach their peak. Russian sage and chrysanthemums are often at peak of flower in early September, and many forms of roses enjoy a lush second bloom. One of our perennial favorites is hyssop, particular anise hyssop, a great medium border plant that produces rich brush-like flowers on woody stalks well into the new season, an ancient star of the autumn garden mentioned in the Book of Exodus for its purgative and cleansing properties. We also love Centaurea atropurpurea or “knapweed,” which features bright ruby red thistle-like flowers that often endure till first frost. Ditto Japanese anemone. Beyond the omnipresent mums, container gardens thrive come Indian summer with mounds of verbena (another plant long associated with the divine, supposedly used to staunch Jesus’ wounds from the cross), Heuchera (coral bells) and various ornamental grasses that will produce vibrant color and texture until the coming of cold weather.
Writer In The Garden
“But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness. The sun warms my back instead of beating on my head. . . the harvest has dwindled, and I have grown apart from the intense Midsummer relationships that brought it on.” Robert Finch, nature writer and essayist
Green Man Rules September’s Sky
In the afterglow of a summer sky teeming with exciting activity — lunar eclipses and the historic Transit of Venus — the night sky settles into a comfortable pattern of change as the sun tracks southward toward the celestial equinox on the 22nd, heralding the official arrival of autumn. As the pace of shortening days accelerates, the Milky Way arches high overhead, offering a celestial zoo of animals. One effect of this change is to produce longer sunsets and a vibrant early night sky where the Summer Triangle of constellations and several bright planets still dominate. Jupiter, rising in the east, is the dominant player in the early autumn sky, but Saturn eases away as the fall shifts into gear. For early risers, September offers prime time for telescoping planets. Views of Jupiter and Venus are particularly striking.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
With the stubble of threshed grain, cooler evenings and tang of fallen apples in the air, ancient Druids — those wily keepers of the forest — annually mounted a late harvest celebration called Maybon to honor the mystical Green Man, the god of the forest, offering homemade spirits, wine and beer to the trees as a form of liquid fertilizer as the dark season looms. (We’ve seen the same bizarre behavior at UNC keg parties on the lawn.) The 14th marks the beginning of Nutting Season, an excellent time for making medicines, when, according to the English Husbandman, 1635, fallen hazelnuts contain magical properties and are ideal for fattening fowls for the coming Michaelmas observance. The man or woman born under the House of Libra — entering September 24 — will be praised for his service though inclined to wander and poor at keeping his marriage vows, whereas woman under this sign is amiable and rejoiced by her husband. (Kalendar of Shepherds, 1604.) The summer’s last blackberries must be picked by the 25th to prevent the devil from fouling them. September 2012
O.Henry 69