Autumn is aster time #phenology

Last year at this time, there were asters in bloom long the sides of our local roadways, including our own road. This year asters, many surrounded by red and yellow poison ivy leaves, are in bloom beside some roads, but none on ours in the locations we saw them last year. We've no idea why or what's going on.

sky-blue asters, or something else?

Photo by J. Harrington

On the other hand, the Better Half just shared some Great News! We have what I think may be sky-blue asters growing on our property, set back about ten yards from the road and even deeper into the woods. Since we thought asters need more sunlight than they'll get where they are, it's time to do more aster research. The ones we have may also be Eurybia macrophylla (Large-leaved Aster) or Symphyotrichum ciliolatum (Lindley's Aster). Time to pay much more attention to details.

We also have no idea where or when our fascination with asters came from, but its here and we'll do our best to honor it, since it provides yet another motivation to actually read, if not rigorously study, our botany guidebook with all those intimidating words we don't know. Finding (actually, being shown) real asters growing wild on our very own property is almost as exciting as discovering the prairie smoke flowers down the road a bit this past Spring.

                     September Midnight

By Sara Teasdale

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,

Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,

Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,

Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,

The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence

Under a moon waning and worn, broken,

Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,

Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,

Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,

Snow-hushed and heavy.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,

While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,

As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,

Lest they forget them.

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