September is one of my – and Gail’s – favorite months in the garden. But so far, this is no ordinary September. Irene aside, it’s raining again. I can’t remember the last time we weren’t desperate for a good drenching by now. (Looking back at my records, it was just 2 years ago that we had a rainy summer. How my memory fades…) In any case, this week the lovely lushness of the late summer garden is soaking wet. Even though we’re lucky that this rain hasn’t brought further devastation along with it like it has for some, we have to take a rain check on getting much work done out there.

Christopher Lloyd called the September garden “sleazy” and looking out at all of the slouching and slumping I have to suspect our garden of a little debauchery too. If we could get in the gardens without compacting the soil, we’d be outside in the lulls propping everyone back up, tidying the overgrown and overblown, and thoroughly enjoying the party. There really is nothing livelier than a September garden – even as parts of the garden are starting to look their age, other plants, like the Autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale) are just coming along to remind us in their weird way of spring and seasonal renewal.

But since we can’t be out tromping around in the garden, we’re catching up on housekeeping (Gail tackles the closet!) and looking forward to all of the amazing events planned for a spectacular September at Blithewold. If you don’t already know that Helen Dillon is coming all the way from Dublin, Ireland to speak to us about the garden she has created and recreated in the most “down to earth” Helen-Dillon sort of way, mark your calendar now; call off work; and send the doggie to daycare. (Monday, September 19, 10:30am – 1:00pm) I mean it. This is a very big deal.

Autumn Splendor – our fall version of Daffodil Days – begins on the 17th and there are a plethora of events right through October 10. Gail, actually helps kick it off with a tour of her late season garden favorites (I can promise you’ll also see at least 6 praying mantis on her tour and 2 hummingbirds.) There are teas coupled with floral design demonstrations (using flowers cut from our gardens) on Fridays and a Fall Family Food Fest on Sunday, September 25 11am – 3pm, billed as “the one day it’s OK to Play with your food!” That same day our bff, Pam Gilpin will also give boggling slideshow of all the coolest bugs she’s found dining in her gardens. And that’s not the whole list by any stretch. (Click here for the lineup.) I’m telling you, rainy or not, September is definitely one of the best months in the garden.

Are you taking a rainy day opportunity to do a little housekeeping too?

This morning a fellow dog walker said to me, “Ugh – this rain is horrible!” To which I replied, “yeah… but we need it.” She looked at me a little sideways. And to myself I said, “Are you kidding me? This is GREAT!” My dog was as muddy as hers and I couldn’t see past the drops on my glasses but gardeners are a breed of human that take the bad with the good. And rain? It’s a good thing! Especially in the dusty wake of a drought. “Some days must be dark and dreary”*. — It’s about time. And it’s part of what I love about October. Nothing sets off the colors of fall like a fine mist on a gray day.

It is a heavy rain today giving us a welcome chance to catch up on greenhouse work and to hash out our annual assessments of the gardens. We’ve worked out a schedule for October and provided it doesn’t rain the entire month (and of course, we need it to) we’ll start taking the gardens apart to make way for projects.

We’ve already started to bring in stock plants – tender perennials from which we’ll take more cuttings – and we hope to have all of the container plants in the greenhouse by the end of next week. It might kill us to do it, but Gail and I will also harden our hearts to take annuals – still in glorious bloom – out of the North and Rose Gardens next week, right after the house closes for the season. (Remember, Columbus Day is last day to see the house before Christmas – and all of the gardens in full glory, come to think of it.) The week after that we hope to turn a load of compost in to the starved Rose Garden. And we’ve got to play musical perennials in the North Garden – the lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) needs dividing (it’s been 3 years and the plants are huge) and to be moved back to keep the flowers from blurring the garden’s ultra-crisp edges. And we have to do all of that of course before we plant the tulips, which we have to do before we lose our volunteers for the season. Whether a little rain, or a lot of rain falls in this life, we have a schedule to keep.

What are your plans for October? Is it raining?

*quote and post title from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Now that it’s officially autumn, illuminated by an exquisitely timed harvest moon, blanketed in morning fog and wrapped in the katsura’s scent of burnt sugar, I am going to have to finally let go of late summer and start calling fall by name. I’ve been sort of  stubborn about acknowledging calendar shifts (all except winter into spring – I always jump the gun on that one) but I like to think it’s just my peculiar and contrary way of making sure I remember to appreciate the current moment, no matter what its name is.

In any case, it doesn’t behoove a gardener to be too resistant to change. Nature is ephemeral and capricious after all, and we’d lose interest if it wasn’t. Our gardens teach us to pay close attention and take nothing for granted.

Just like gardening, flower arranging is an excellent exercise in letting go. Yesterday, Blakely Szosz, one of our diva volunteer flower arrangers demonstrated the tips, tricks and a few of the rules (once you know the rules, you can break them) that go into making artful arrangements. Part of the beauty of an arrangement – and part of what is so fascinating and heart breaking (just like gardening) – is that it is a living sculpture that is going to fade, wither and die. You’ve simply got to enjoy it while it lasts. And then make another. I have to admit that I don’t have a natural inclination to bring flowers in the house or make arrangements. I’d generally prefer to leave everything be (and to the bees) in the garden. But as the days get shorter, I can begin to see the appeal of bringing parts of the garden inside for an extended period of appreciation. And now my frustrated inner artist is inspired too… There’s one more flower arranging demonstration in the Autumn Splendor series next Wednesday at 11AM on the mansion’s north porch.

Do you cut flowers to bring in the house? Any particular time of year more than another? Do you create a work of art?