A Welcome Rain Brings Out the Reds

 Thursday, September 25, 2025

The rain started last evening and continues this morning. Radar shows a swath of rain across New Hampshire, Vermont, and northern New York, a region much in need of this moisture. It is a steady rain, not a downpour, which helps the water soak into the hardened earth rather than run-off where it won't help replenish the parched ground and local aquifers. This is the first all-day rain that I can recall since earlier in summer. We got a sprinkle or quick shower now and then but mostly any predicted rainfall dissipated before we received a single drop. 

I've kept the vegetables going with regular watering; green beans, Swiss chard, zucchini, lettuce, arugula, and cilantro still lush and producing. Peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes are nearing the end of their life. Perennials get less attention, except for the annual marigolds and nasturtiums that I plant from seed in May and that reach their full glory now.

Red maples seem more vivid on a gray, rainy autumn day, when other trees are still green or pale yellow. One hears various predictions about New England fall colors beginning in August. Too hot, too wet, too cold could mean fewer and drabber colors, they'd prodict. My best-boss Bob used to admonish such negativity, "fall colors will always be beautiful," he'd assert. No need to scare away tourists with drab talk. 

If there is one shrub that I recommend everyone plant in their yard, it is winterberry, Ilex verticillata. You need at least two, as male and female flowers are on separate plants. Unfortunately you can't tell which is which when young. But if you get it right and end up with a female plant, there is nothing more beautiful than a winterberry in fruit in September, especially on a rainy day. The fruits are persistent, loved by birds, and by Spring they've all been consumed.