WEATHER is both enjoyed and endured. It can be benign or devastating. It is one of Earth’s last wild things and although we can predict it to some extent, we certainly cannot control it.
Weather profoundly affects our culture, our economy and our well-being.
Autumn initiates the wettest, windiest season of the year (even though the north wind never ‘went away’ this year) and it usually sees the final break-up of the flimsier components in the ornamental garden.
But the season seldom fails to provide at least some fine settled spells which bring us light which is soft, a countryside that virtually glows, and temperatures which are, at least, pleasantly warm.
Since early in the New Year, the weather has been the focus of our attention, and irrespective of what it brought, it was seldom enough to satisfy us.
We hoped for the hot, summer sun, the long evenings outside, and the joy (and wonder) of one fine day following another. It never became a reality.
Now, as the children return to school and holidays come to an end, there is still the hope of something better to come.
In hushed and whispered tones we speak of an Indian summer, a time of flower festivals and harvest thanksgiving, of evenings full of such undervalued qualities as sharing and family gatherings, and sunsets full of decorative dahlias and scented roses.
One could be forgiven for thinking that the term ‘Indian summer’ had much to do with the continent of India, with rides on overflowing public transport through Delhi or Bangalore and oriental dishes full of hot curried ingredients served up in paper thin tacos.
You would be quite mistaken, for the Indian reference is not a remnant of the British Empire, but to the Indians of North America.
Revise your mental picture now and think of North East America, of the film Dances with Wolves, and huge herds of wild buffalo, the cry of a wolf called Two Socks, moccasin footwear, and tented tepee villages.
Here in the land of the Iroquios warriors, summers were long and autumns golden, full of ripe fruit and long shadows, to be quickly followed by terrible winters of freezing snow, biting winds and frightfully long, pitch black nights.
Nothing as severe spoils our autumns but many garden plants react in a fashion which is regular and utterly predictable.
The most interesting change in autumn is that which manifests itself in many evergreens as they detect cooler nights and turn from green to a purplish hue.
Holly does this, so too ivy, laurel, osmanthus and a host of conifers.
The Hebe ‘Mrs Winder’ is typical of several clones with dark stems and narrow purple leaves whose colouring is more intense in winter.
If it flowers at all, it will be in winter, small purple spikes which move and sparkle like a diamond necklace of street lights.
I do hope the Indian summer will arrive, but if not, there will be no time for regrets.
Once the clocks go back it won’t be long until Christmas, but quite some time before robin songs melt the last of winter.
