October
The great winding down is upon us. Starting in the freezing days of January, the days when nights are longest, as the sun begins to slowly extend its time overhead, quiet signals are sent and received. That is the true beginning but we cannot see it. The process is slow, especially at first, but after a couple months the first visible evidence of the beginning reveals itself. We are inspired by the rebirth of the earth and through the agency of our spirits take part in it. Through the surge of springtime months the swelling force of life continues, following strongly the upward arc of the great cycle, pushing outward, enveloping, budding and then blossoming. As the sun ascends and the heat rises and the days extend, there is pollination and reproduction, labor and toil, tending to and toward the undeniable imperative embodied in the ripening of this year's fruit. At the apex of the arc is a moment of fullness, a point when the energy is concentrated and then wondrously transformed into the seeds that promise another turn of the wheel. And then...
The great winding down begins in September, sooner or later. The magnificent autumnal transformation that occurs in temperate regions of the world and reaches its climax sometime in October has already to some degree commenced when the tenth month begins. It starts with little splashes of color already scattered here and there in the landscape, provided by the earliest plant species to feel the impulse. Flowering dogwood, blackgum and sourwood are all now displaying their various red autumnal tones, while Virginia creeper shows itself as a dark burgundy trace crawling up the trunks of trees and threading through their canopies. Goldenrod flowers light up the woods edge in bright yellow, as more subtle expressions of the same color begin to emerge in the leaves of tuliptrees, hickories, birches and black walnuts. Here and there the tops of red maples are igniting with a red and orange flare. The oaks are still mostly green, and the mountainsides and the valleys below them are still mostly green, but all of it is in flux and can change very quickly. The spruces and pines, rhododendrons and laurels may stubbornly hold to their evergreenish ways, but deciduous species are more prone to following fashion, and green is about to go out style.
The colder weather has begun now, too. Not the very cold weather, which waits ahead, but the start of it. Here in the mountains at this time of year the nighttime temperatures are regularly in the fifties, often down to the forties, and on occasion slipping into the thirties. We've seen a couple of frosts already, but none yet so heavy as to burn off the last of the summer annuals. That will happen soon enough. The first hard freeze is likely to come some night this month, although that is a variable difficult to predict one year to the next. Daytime temperatures can still climb into the eighties, but those occasions are fewer now and their likelihood diminishes as October goes along. Typically the weather is fairly agreeable, with daytime temperatures in the sixties or seventies early in the month, but trending cooler as the weeks go by. A sunny day in October is a glorious prospect. The sun this month has lost its summer intensity, and the remaining warmth it radiates is welcomed as a reason to peel off an outer layer of clothing that was necessary in the morning and will be needed again toward the end of the day. A cloudy day in October can be glorious too, but somewhere in the chill of it is the first breath of winter.
As a grower of ornamental plants, I welcome October. Right now, a good many of the plants I grow look worn out, their leaves spotted and dull, weary from the stresses of a long growing season. Soon, though, they will look briefly spectacular, ablaze in an array of seasonal color: purplish red into orange and rust, pale yellow into mustard and gold. We have a diverse bonsai collection that abounds in deciduous species and we can put on a great show in October.
Right now, however, the beautiful colors have yet to fully appear, and many of our deciduous bonsai would benefit from that happening. The same is true in the bonsai garden, as well as in the woods and fields, where shopworn leaves abound and nature's face is looking faded. The robust energy once exhibited by the plants has waned, or, more properly speaking, has been withdrawn. Energy for next year is being stored now, in twigs and branches, trunks and roots, in all the parts of a deciduous woody plant that go on from year to year. This year's leaves, however, are all but spent. Those leaves have been so important since first emerging back in spring! They are the plant's solar panels, deployed during the time of year when the sun is strongest and most generous with its energy. Once the sun's strength is diminished to a certain point and the temperature drops, the strategy of many temperate plants is to shed all foliage in preparation for winter dormancy. Leaves are hardworking organs, even as they are such seemingly frail things, paper thin and translucent. They are exposed to the searing heat of the sun, whipped by the wind, pelted by driving rain, chewed up by a host of foraging creatures, sucked dry by bugs and attacked by fungal pathogens. That's why many leaves do not look so good at this time of year, just before they become momentarily, radiantly, glorious. After that they drop and the trees and shrubs that bore them for roughly half a year will stand bare for roughly an equal length of time. Fortunately deciduous plants are not sentimentalists; they know how to let go and make a celebration of it.
I admit that last sentence is a bit of anthropomorphic fluffery. Science gives us the real reason for the color change and explains how it happens. Here is the information as presented in Wikipedia: Plants have both stress-induced and age-related developmental aging. Chlorophyll degradation during leaf senescence reveals the carotenoids, such as anthocyanin and xanthophylls, which are the cause of autumn leaf color in deciduous trees. Leaf senescence has the important function of recycling nutrients, mostly nitrogen, to growing and storage organs of the plant. Unlike animals, plants continually form new organs and older organs undergo a highly regulated senescence program to maximize nutrient export.
But science does not explain why bearing witness to this phenomenon affects us the way it does. Why should the revelation of hidden carotenoids in plant leaves mean anything to us? And who does not feel something stir within them when they look upon the sight of autumn color in the landscape? We can say the autumn leaves are beautiful, and they are, but then what is beauty? What purpose does it serve in this instance? And what accounts for the melancholy we often feel in autumn, contemplating the changing landscape under a gray and cloudy sky, with the smell of wood smoke and a quiet chill carried on the breeze? Why does the past sometimes feel so close in autumn? I think it all has to do with the turning of the wheel. The wheel is always turning, but sometimes you can really sense it, feel its movement. October, with nature ablaze in autumn fire, is a time when this is likely to happen.
The coloration of deciduous leaves is a very noticeable and beloved reminder of where we are in the cycle of the seasons. The great winding down is upon us.
