The Moon, Crickets and Plant speak

The moon is bright and crickets sing through the night, a sound that brings in autumn, so why am I up at 3 a.m. to write this post? Maybe the moon’s brightness through the bedroom window beckons me. It may be the change of the season. Birds feel it, insects and wildlife feel it, so what’s so strange if humans feel it as well? The always moving sun sinks further south in the sky to signal the end of a season and invites the coming autumnal equinox before the onset of winter.

This time of year we reflect on our summer’s sunny days and rainy ones too. And, our thoughts go to the coming winter months. Our cold winters brings a different beauty, a stillness in the forest that in a way is deafening with many of the forest denizens hunkered down. The low sun angle makes shadows much longer.

I mention how animals including humans feel the season changes. Plants figured this out millions of years ago so they set next seasons buds in the summer and start preparing for the cold months long before we are thinking winter. In summertime our thoughts are of beaches and boating, barbecue’s and warm summer nights when darkness doesn’t come until 11 o’clock.

Plants are wise. They react to a rainy summer by putting on a growth spurt to store up food in their roots for the potential there may be a dry summer to come. If summer is dry the plants know to slow down, conserve energy, sometimes they will drop leaves in July to slow down photosynthesis - the trees factory that produces energy but also requiring a lot of water that may not be available.

Over the years gardeners coming to the nursery and express concerns their trees are turning color earlier than usual. It might be they got dry during the summer or possibly to much water. The trees and shrubs turning early are telling us it’s time to shut down for the year. Their leaf buds are set for next season and by dropping leaves early they’re saying goodnight. Call it plant-speak. In the coming weeks plants will give us a splendid show of many color before the leaves go dancing away and the plants can rest through 6 moons before awaking from their slumber.

So, as the moon cycles every 28 days, we reminisce of our summer and prepare for the winter, think how fortunate we living at this latitude can fully enjoy the four seasons.