A change is in the air

September is a changing season. The sun is setting earlier and moving south in the sky. The shadows cast are much longer and will continue this way until the winter solstice. Birds are busy finding ripe fruit to fuel them in their southern migration, some all the way to South America. We have Kingbirds that spend the summer at the nursery and are fueling up on our many alternate leaf dogwood and arrowwood viburnum because of their early ripening fruit.

Whiling hiking this past week near Mackinaw City we found many mushrooms, the fruiting bodies of fungi, and I found a small cluster of Clintonia – blue-bead lily. I really like this plant. It can easily be mistaken for Canada Mayflower, both are native to the northern forest. I’ve only found one mass of blue-bead in our area so when I find it I get excited.

The mushrooms were abundant and varied. Seems late summer/early fall weather bring the fruiting bodies of fungi out of their dark world underground to spread their spores on the wind. Fungi are not an animal or a plant but in their own Kingdom – a Kingdom much older than either plant or animal. Some are edible, some deadly to consume. I choice to just enjoy seeing them in the wild and leave alone. Each spring gardeners come in to purchase mulch to freshen planting beds and many mention the number of morels they have coming up in the mulch done the year before. We at the nursery aren’t sure of the connection between morels and red pine mulch but there is some kind of relationship and we’re just happy to beautify their beds and give them a meal.

Get into the woods this late summer and early autumn; no bugs, cooler temps. and the feel of changes at the 45th parallel. We experience more change from season to season than any other place on earth. Embrace the beauty, listen to the winds symphony through the trees and be thankful for the changes.