Goldenrod: a signifier of fading summer, a harbinger of approaching autumn. It’s seemingly everywhere this September: every roadside, every field, every meadow, even in my yard, the plethora of yellow blooms like paint strokes from Van Gogh, as bursting with color and chaos as his irises.
It’s been about a half dozen years since I allowed a fat patch of my back lawn to return to nature. The first season or two, the grasses grew tall and wavy. Then pine trees popped up and a bunch of stuff I can’t identify, and now the goldenrod is filling whatever gaps remained, waist-high and richly yellow under the sun.
Bees and butterflies love goldenrod’s late-season nectar. Its pollen is heavy and sticky, it doesn’t blow in the wind, and therefore doesn’t cause allergies, although many people blame this essential pollinator for their September sneezing and stuffy sinuses. The real culprit is the much-less-lovely-named ragweed, which blooms at the same time, is all green, and whose pollen rides the breeze and will find you. Goldenrod would never be so rude.
Already, the goldenrod is beginning to fade. Autumn is a few days away. The turning leaves are next. The color continues.
