6 91 2003-10-01 $Date$ NormanWalsh 2003Norman Walsh The first of October seems a fitting time to acknowledge the arrival of autumn…in the northern hemisphere, at least. Robert Browning I trust in Nature for the stable laws Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant And Autumn garner to the end of time The first of October seems a fitting time to acknowledge the arrival of autumn. Autumn in the northern hemisphere, at least; “happy spring!” to all my friends and colleagues on the other side of the equator. Up here, the nights are crisp and the leaves are starting to shift through the spectrum. The rudbeckia, standing tall in the misty morning light of late September, have faded noticably in the last few days. Soon, very soon, it’ll be time to prepare the beds for winter. And when our rose-of-sharon stops blooming and settles down for the winter, time to move it as well. It’s in a very poor spot, at the edge of our driveway, where the snowplow invariably mauls it. A transplant from my in-laws yard in New York, it was originally a tree form, now it’s a bush, as the first year’s plow snapped it off at ground level. If it can survive that, it’ll survive transplanting again. I hope.