ST. MICHAELMAS DAISIES AND CURSED BLACKBERRIES

NEW ENGLAND ASTERS...

...TOOK OVER THE GARDEN AND I ROUGED THEM OUT..

...NOW I MISS THEM AND WANT SOME BACK

Friday, 7:30 AM. 67 degrees F at at the ferry dock, 64 on the back porch.  Wind NNW, light with much stronger gusts. The sky is overcast and cloudy, a storm front moving through, and it has begun to rain.  The barometer is unsettled, now at 29.82".  It looks like we will get a violent storm.  Thunderstorm are predicted for the weekend, with highs around 80, then cooling off, with more stormy weather on Monday and throughout the week.
   The New England aster, Aster novae-angliae, in the Sunflower Family, is a tall, vigorous perennial with fairly large compound, purple flowers. A similar plant with pink flowers is the New Belgium aster. Like most asters, the flowers have yellow centers. The New England aster is often seen in the garden, and is also called St. Michaelmas daisy, as it comes into bloom in England about that saint’s day, September 29, and is often planted in Anglican churchyards for that reason. It is the last aster to blossom in fall. 

   The Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel (also called the Feast of All Angels) was an important Medieval calendar day, as it marked the end of the harvest, when the reeve of the manor settled all accounts with tenants.  As a church feast day it celebrated the casting out of Satan from heaven by the Archangel Michael in the heavenly war of good against evil.

   Fokelore has it that Satan landed among  the thorns of an earthly blackberry patch, and was so angered at doing so, that he cursed blackberries so as to be inedible after September 29.  Frankly, they were cursed and inedible long before that date this year.  The devil must have been working overtime.
   I am not aware of any medicinal or economic uses of the asters, their beauty alone makes them valuable, and for most of us it is O.K. to recognize them all as asters, and enjoy them as that.  Like goldenrods, they are a complicated lot, and I am satisfied with knowing only a handful of them well.
   I made a decision a few years ago to rogue New England asters out of the garden, as they had taken over and dominated it all summer before they finally bloomed in fall.  Now I wish I had not been so thorough, and had left a few. An angel or two would be a welcome presence as well.
   No posts for a day or two, we are traveling to Wautoma, Wisconsin for a funeral.

STORM FRONT