mulberryshoots

newly planted chrysanthemums and perennial chinese lanterns

Autumn in New England is one of the most beautiful seasons of the year. This afternoon around 4 p.m. the autumnal equinox will occur: when the sun crosses the equator resulting in night and day being equally divided. A song was even written about it, “Autumn in New York.” Yesterday morning, I passed by a beautiful, huge chrysanthemum plant at the grocery store. It was a combination of russet and yellow blooms, the buds barely showing any color, tightly wound ready to burst into bloom in a few days. I kept thinking about it so I went back yesterday afternoon and bought it. G. and I made a patch for it (at least, G. did) and we wedged it into the front of the stone triangle garden in front of the house. His little stone gargoyle guy was set right under it, gnawing or playing his pipe.

Today, on Sunday, the 22nd of September, the morning began overcast and grey, although the blue morning glories on the deck greeted us from the kitchen window as we had breakfast and read the morning papers. Then, G. went off to Boston to do a couple of piano tunings and I settled back to write a letter to a potter friend in Australia.

I thought how nice it would be to pick up a few smaller pots of mums in different colors and to plant them all (including the huge mother plant) into the ground. There was also a bag of mulch sitting around all summer, too heavy for me to move into place to spread it (or at least that was my proffered excuse to myself.)

At the Stop and Shop, I found three bushy mums in yellow, russet and a warm dusty rose. Putting on my sneakers when I got home, I used a big garden fork and spade to dig holes for the plants. Weeded and cut thick, woody roots. Planted the mums and mulched them with ye old bag of mulch. Swept the porch steps and watered the plants with a fine spray from the hose still outside. It felt satisfying to have acknowledged the equinox with this bevy of mums in the garden, especially with so much human drama occurring all around us every day.