A fresh start in September
A fresh start in September
It's my favorite month of next year.
Spring often gets the credit for the awakening of a garden's season, which is understandable. Storms subside, the sun hangs around a little longer, and those two combined encourage plants to send out their young into this brighter world. And we're so ready for it by then, aren't we? To see fresh green shoots pushing aside the dirt and maybe even a few early buds beginning to form. Our gardening plans for the year are less ideas at this time, and more action plan-like. It feels momentous, and it is. The fleeting moment in our garden year that's all love and hugs, not slugs and powdery mildew.
It is one of my favorite times of year but not THE. And while it very well may be the start of many a growing calendar, again it's not THE start for me. Mine begins in September.
It's probably a cast-off from childhood, when September meant a new school year. When new pencils and notebooks and sneakers and the possibility of a new friend (and better study habits) very much felt like the start of something big. And it still does for me, although the new pencils and sneakers have been replaced by seed packets and clippers (I will forever and ever pick up new notebooks whenever I can, however). It’s a happy exchange.
By the time September rolls around, most plants have been in some stage of active growth since February. Our long growing year here in San Francisco can leave the garden limping along by the time Fall arrives on the horizon. Couple that with my tendency to escape the summer fog and barely lift a secateur June-August, my plants have all gone to seed and then some. A few wave a white flag each time I spare them a glance in August. No time, I tell them, lugging our suitcases out the front door, I'm sorry.
But come September, when our family life resumes a routine and predictable rhythm, I turn back to the garden with fresh eyes, ideas solidified, ready to act. Fall planting is my Spring, my season of renewal. I cut back the spent, leaving what the bugs and birds will use, and move plants, plant plants, and keep my fingers crossed for another wet winter. As the bronze afternoon light darkens, I pile on the mulch and arrange the tulips pots just so, and stare at the new perennial babies, willing their roots to grow.
It's a pretty great beginning to the growing year, I must say. That warm but not-too-warm sun on your face and that Fall nip at your shoulders. I might be heading inside soon, but only for moments of respite before I'll be back out again throughout the quiet days of fall and winter, a spring in my step, renewed.
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A few cute flower moments captured whenever I did make an appearance this summer to quickly spray the plants with some water:
