Pre-Autumn Colors

Coleus, coneflower and euonymous bushes
protected by deer netting. (Margo D. Beller)

At this time of year it is hard to deny summer is finally ending.

Labor Day has been and gone. Children are either back in school or in their homes doing their learning remotely because of the continued coronavirus pandemic. It is now dark until about 6:15 a.m. and is dark again around 7 p.m. Even on warm days the evenings and overnights are cool enough to keep the air conditioner off. Several times this week the temperature will dip into the 40s for the first time in months.

Perhaps the best sign of autumn's approach is to see what is growing in the garden. It's more enjoyable to look around now that I've finished with my weeding. The late summer heat diminished the coreopsis, the coneflower and the daisies. However, now the garden is full of pinks and purples from the Rose of Sharons, the liriopes, the sedums and the big pot of 4 coleus plants I had indoors over the winter, and which grew and filled in with the summer heat.

Peppers on plant, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

There are other colors. The green of the viburnum is contrasted with the red berries growing where the flowers were too high to be browsed by deer. The berries will be eaten by birds, I hope, rather than squirrels. There are a number of green peppers that started coming in with the late-summer heat and are now very slowly turning red enough for me to pick and use. Until recently there were tomatoes ripening to gold. But now chipmunks have picked off the small, green fruits and I've brought what's left of them inside.

The green lawn is looking lusher now that it isn't being blasted by intense heat. But when MH does not get to mowing it, the long grass hosts other plants, in this case some of the nearby sensitive ferns and small locust trees growing from the root of one or more of the trees at the curb. I do not care to dig up the yard so I must depend on MH's mowing or me cutting these mini trees down with a lopper.

Rose of Sharon, a favorite with bees
(Margo D. Beller)

The birds are in transition, too. I have seen no hummingbirds at that feeder since Aug. 31. They are on the move south. Now that nesting is over and the young have left, some of the yard birds are making noise again. The cardinal calls "teek!" as it flies around the backyard, waking me at first light, and I am reminded it will soon be time to put out the feeders. Titmice are coming to the water dishes and there is still a catbird calling from the bushes. The catbird will be gone by winter. On those mornings I can make myself get up in the dark and get out to look for them, there are warblers in their autumnal coloring and other birds I haven't seen since spring, all heading south for the winter.

Unlike the spring birds, these fall migrants are mainly silent, which means I must work harder to find them as they dart around in treetops feeding on insects after a long flight to my area from their northern breeding grounds. When I can find them I am pleased, especially if I can identify them. It doesn't make it easier that I must now contend with floaters in my left eye that make me think there is something flying above me when there isn't.

There are also raptors. They migrate, too and, unlike the smaller birds, they travel by day on the warm winds called thermals that rise off ridges and mountains. The hawk watchers have been been busy doing their counting since August, and I have been lucky to see hawks, eagles, accipiters and ospreys.

Joe-Pye weed, goldenrod, ferns at Tempe Wick Reserve,
Mendham Township, NJ 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Of course, the most obvious sign of autumn's approach is the leaves starting to color. The dogwood's are going red, the apple tree has been losing leaves since the apples stopped in June and there are plenty of little yellow leaves in the street, on the lawn and tracked into the house from the locust trees. Soon the oaks, maples and elms will drop their colorful leaves and MH and I will be out with rake and tarp. So far I have not seen many locust pods so I am hopeful that, as with the apple tree this spring, this won't be a year of plenty.

I will enjoy all these garden colors for as long as possible, but I know that, inevitably, winter will return, too.