It is the first day of meteorological autumn. It is an odd, rather mathematical, way of breaking the year up into seasons, simply by creating four equal quadrants: September, October, November (Autumn), December, January, February (Winter), March, April, May (Spring), June, July, August (Summer).
Astrological autumn is more logical as that connects with day length. It begins with the equinox on 22 September, this year, when day and night are equal and continues to the winter solstice on 21 December which is the shortest day. Winter continues until the spring equinox on March 20. Spring is from then to the summer solstice on June 21. From then until 22 September is summer and then it is autumn once more in our round of seasons. The symmetry is slightly spoilt by the equinoxes and solstices ranging by several days around the 21st of the month. The shift is due to the fact that our year of 365 days is not the actual time it takes for the earth to go round the sun, which is close to 365 ¼ days. It’s that odd quarter day which is responsible for the shift.
Around the garden are the heralds of autumn. The sycamore is full of helicopters, ripe and ready to fly. The leaves of the tree are languid and crinkled, brown at the edges. They have such a short life, no more than six months, from the bright green leaves of spring to the senile leaves of autumn, informing us, if we didn’t already know, that too much sun is bad for living organisms.
There are not many flowers, though a few are hanging on like the hollyhocks, the Japanese anemone, and, through dead-heading, the marigolds. The buddleia flowers on, and there are a few late roses. I see water lily buds in the pond, so we may get one or two yet. The wildflower bed is a waste land. There’s the tiny yellow flowers of hedge mustard, a few tired corn marigolds, though its most interesting feature is the cluster of bird’s nests of the wild carrot. All the plums have been eaten, well, what do you expect? Our tiny grapes are ripe. We have a few pears but no apples.
Autumn can be seen as the season of fruit and harvest, but also as the season of dying. All those leaves and flowers have decayed or will soon. Goodbye to the annuals. But, of course, seed is renewal too. That’s the point of fruit and berries. Not to feed us, but to be future plants.
I look for spiders in their webs about the garden. This should be their breeding days. I see a web or two but no spiders. It has been so dry and that’s bad for insects and spiders, and for the garden in general. Our water barrels are empty. We have three metre-cubes (IBCs) each with a capacity of a 1000 litres, and smaller barrels too, giving us roughly another 1000. So 4000 litres in total, all used up in watering plants. But we have the hose and we fill up the central cascade of barrels so we can water until this drought breaks.
There are very few snails around. They need moisture. Many die off in hot dry weather. They seal themselves in to retain moisture, and some will survive till the rains come. That is autumn’s promise.
The ukulele group had its final session today. The group ran over the summer into the first day of autumn. Well done to the players and to Misty for leading the sessions. The group numbers held out so well. Usually there’s a drop off, but most kept to it. The garden has been tuneful on Sunday mornings with their melodies.
There are so many here today, 30 or so ukulele players, with lots of friends and family to hear their last session. Misty said, it was a joy to work with them all, to a well-earned round of applause, and a few tears, before everyone got down to the food and drink including the two large celebratory cakes. May we hear more of their music in the days to come.