Fall Arrives.

9-19-15 SHORT HILLS: The Autumnal Equinox arrives in a few days, September 23, and Fall begins as the sun deserts the northern hemisphere for six months. The days are still hot here, in the afternoon, but the nights are cooler, in the fifties. Our shaggy dogs seem peppier with the lower temps.

We had a very welcome rain last week, but now things are getting dry again, and the sprinklers are back on. There is no rain in the forecast for the next week. All the non-gardeners and non-farmers are delighted with the weather.

The fall berries are ripening. Most of them are red, probably so the birds can easily find them amid all the green leaves. The plants depend on the birds to eat the seeds for the fruity parts and then poop out the actual seeds with a dollop of fertilizer. It’s a symbiotic and complex system. Climate change affects where the plants can live, and where the birds can live. Those new habitats may not be mutually compatible—then both plants and birds suffer.


Bally says, 'Enough summer already. I'm wearing a fur coat.'

Dogwood.

Yew.

Apple.

Linden viburnum. If those berries turn blue, then it's an arrowwood viburnum, which has a very similar look.