The Long Goodbye

Fall back. The clocks were set an hour earlier when daylight savings time changed the first weekend in November. Dusk now settles in long before dinner is on the table. It was finally time to pot up and bring inside the last of the dragonwing begonias, some purple, green and white-striped Rhoeo and a pot of sedum. The workshop is filling up in spite of my mantra, “don’t bring in so many plants this fall.”

There’s the giant jade plant my mother bought more than a decade ago. A purple-leaved oxalis is planted at its feet. Pots of purple tradescantia and cordyline line the top of a bookshelf in front of a sunny window.

There are pots of coleus, including Radical Raspberry, picked up for a buck at a Michigan farmer’s market in September. And numerous cuttings of the mother plant rooting in water, alongside sweet potato vines, all of which must be potted up. But that’s nothing compared to my brother Greg’s indoor garden this fall. “He must have at least 200 coleus cuttings under lights,” my mum said. “You should see them.” I can only imagine. Especially after he transformed a spare bedroom into the Plant Room, where come deep winter, he will begin sowing seeds of annuals, tomatoes, herbs and more.

I want to say goodbye to the summer gardening season, stow the tools and forget about digging, pruning, weeding, fertilizing, watering, deadheading, pinching, mulching, composting...but it’s too difficult. So, in come the plants and on go the lights. Maybe not 200 annuals to brighten our workshop, but a few dozen. I'll do that as soon as I plant the 400-plus tulip and daffodil bulbs and some Asiatic lilies. And then there will be rest. Until seed starting begins in earnest come March. Yes, time to fall back...into the easy chair.