September is a relief, as much as it is anything.

The most obvious relief comes in the form of cooler temperatures, as the heat that has prevailed for the last two months begins to loosen its grip. There will be plenty of hot days in September, because it’s still summer. But as we make our way through the weeks ahead, leading up to the autumn equinox later in the month, there will be days when the air won't be so stifling and you won't feel like you are being baked alive when you stand out in the sun. There may even be a few days when heat and humidity are altogether absent, the kind of days that surprise with their mildness and their nearness to perfection. These days whisper to you of the turning that is soon to come. The coming change will be more noticeable at night. Overnight temperatures dropping down into the fifties is perfectly in character for September in the mountains, when ideal sleeping conditions can be had by leaving the windows open and pulling on a light blanket. Crickets and katydids will serenade you to sleep as they sing their songs to the summer's end.

Summer is long. The change that September brings is a relief, and not only in terms of temperature. Children are back in school, and most parents will admit this is a relief, even if summer vacation was enjoyable. For football fans, the start of September means the start of the college season, with the pro season starting a week later. For many of these people the span of time from the Super Bowl to now has been a long, sad trek through a bleak period of deprivation, so they feel relief at the return of weekends that have meaning.

For those of us in the bonsai game, September brings relief in two critical areas of concern: watering needs and rampant plant growth. The bonsai will need less daily watering this month than they did in July or August, although they will still be checked daily. But whereas through the heat and glare of summer nearly every bonsai needed water nearly every day that it didn't rain, as we move into September there will be days when just a few plants here and there need "touching up". This will be a relief to the bonsai assistant and me because we spend a great deal of our summertime keeping water on the plants. Likewise, for those of us who prune plants and pull weeds there will be time to do a little catching up, because the plants' growth will be slowing down. This will be a relief from the persistent sense of falling ever further behind in our work. There are many bonsai in the greenhouse and hoop house that have been on auto-pilot for most of the summer, getting regular watering, of course, but being allowed to grow more or less unrestrained. The weeds that share space in the pots of these plants have also enjoyed the same freedom of expression. In the coming month, as the rate of regrowth on the bonsai displayed in the garden begins to slow to an eventual halt, the backlot specimens and plants in training will be the beneficiaries of our freed up time. That is to say, they will finally get some attention. Whether the plants themselves would, had they the capacity for thoughtful self interest, think this attention beneficial, is a debatable point.

September has other, more somber qualities. It can be a month permeated by regret and resignation. On the other end of summer, when the growing season was young and overflowing with the urgency of spring's momentum, there were heady expectations and plans that were made. There was an optimism born of possibility, because summer lay ahead and the promise of increase and good fortune was in the air. But summer is long and can become wearisome, because there is so much labor in it (much more than could be appreciated from a distance.) Invariably there are disappointments. There are things you intended to do, but didn't. There are plans that went awry, despite the best intentions. There are plans that never got off the ground because there was never enough time, or conditions were never as favorable as anticipated, or the plan was not really a plan at all but only a dream that never had a chance of happening. Expectations turn into empty rooms with shut doors. Come September, with the heat diminishing and the light growing shorter by the day, with summer's pulse slowing down and its energy draining off, you begin to realize that it didn't go the way you thought it would. The realization comes slowly, but it comes more and more pointedly as the month progresses. Time has run out. It has not run out entirely, but it has run out to the point where you recognize how much of it is gone and how little remains.

First there is surprise at how quickly the time has gone by. Then there is regret for all that didn't come to pass in the glory days of summer. And finally, on some evening when a distinct coolness is in the breeze, and shadows are long because it is the golden hour and the sun is fast setting in a pink and gray sky, you look out at trees in the distance and see their leaves have begun to turn, and you come to the place of resignation. There is no use in denying and no use in resisting. And once you are resigned to it, once you accept the reality of it, there comes a certain secret sense of relief.

This is how it goes. This is how it always has gone and always will go, in September.

Images from the bonsai garden in late summer:

Images from the mountains in late summer: