A Floating Sequence
For the Blooming of Wildflowers and Perennials

August 1 Boneset, Late-Season Hosta
August 2 Prickly Mallow, Giant Yellow Hyssop
August 3 Clearweed, Milk Purslane, Love Vine
August 4 Willow Herb
August 5 Japanese Knotweed
August 8 White Boneset
August 10 Three-Seeded Mercury
August 12 Tall Goldenrod
August 14 Rose Pink
August 17 Love Vine
August 23 Hog Peanut
August 24 Jerusalem Artichoke
August 29 Beggarticks
August 30 Bur Marigold

August Phenology

When honeysuckle berries ripen, and hickory nuts and black walnuts drop into the undergrowth, then dig your potatoes.

When you hear robins make their clucking migration calls, then make corrective lime and fertilizer applications for August and September seeding.

When green acorns fall to the sweet rocket growing back for next year’s flowers, then black walnut trees will have lost about a third of their leaves and hummingbirds, wood ducks, Baltimore orioles and purple martins start to disappear south.

When the violet Joe Pye weed flowers become gray like the thistledown, then peaches, processing tomatoes and peppers are almost all picked, and the fruit of the bittersweet ripens orange.

When watermelons are ripe and firefly season comes to a close, then cut the last of your oats and put in your fall peas.

When spiders start to increase their building of webs in the woodlot, then yellow jacket season to begin in the windfall apples and plums, and morning fogs increase in the lowlands.

When the first field corn is mature, then divide and transplant the lily-of-the-valley.

When cardinals stop singing before dawn, watch the soybean leaves yellowing in the fields and get ready to cut corn for silage.

When velvet leaf goes to seed in Midwestern fields, then frost time approaches for pastures in the Rocky Mountains.

When you see long flocks of blackbirds moving across the sky, then it’s time for plums to be the sweetest of the year.

After you pick the last of the elderberries, then scout the fields for late-season pests: second brood corn borers, second generation of bean leaf beetles, and rootworm beetles.

When the first wild grape is sweet enough to eat, then prepare the soil for the planting of winter grains.

When all the summer apples have been picked, then look for the first puffball mushroom of the year to swell in the cool, damp nights.

When you see more than one Judas maple tree in the woodlot, then hickory nutting season gets underway.

When red leaves appear on the Virginia creeper in Kentucky, then snow threatens gardens in central Canada.

When the last of the garden phlox die back, then ragweed time winds down and the year’s final tier of wildflowers is budding: beggarticks, bur marigolds, asters, zigzag goldenrod.

When the midseason hosta and the lilies are gone, summer stabilizes again, solid in the gold and purple coneflowers, the tall wingstem and ironweed, the rich opening of the ragweed, the green budding stalks of the goldenrod poised, their full season still ahead, reassuring, promising the long-lived asters in another few weeks.

When dogbane pods turn reddish brown in the fields, then wood nettle has gone to seed under the high canopy.

When elm trees start to turn, then watch for mallards flying south. Whip-poor-wills, cedar waxwings and catbirds follow.

When you find your first puffball mushroom (big and white like a lost soccer ball) in the woods, then mallards will be migrating and farmers will be preparing their fields for winter wheat.

When greenbrier berries are black, then prickly mallow will be blooming along the fencerows and almost all the oats will be cut.

When the last of the summer apples are picked, then the wood thrush will be moving south across the Ohio River.

When arrowhead blooms in the waterways, then pale Asian lady beetles have begun their late-summer migration.

The Seasons of August
Week One
The first week of August brings White Snakeroot, Boneset, Clearweed and Jumpseed Seasons. Ragweed Season spreads across the village, and the pollen count begins its slow climb from an average of 30 grains per cubic meter at the end of July to about 300 by the end of August. Blackberry Season and Grape Season has moved up from Kentucky as Black Walnut Leafdrop Season gathers momentum. Stonecrop Season starts in the gardens of Yellow Springs as Meadowlark Migration Season and Ruby-Throated Hummingbird Flocking Season get underway.

Week 2
High Katydid Season marks the slow decline of Dog Day Season this week of the year. Migration seasons intensify for wood ducks, Baltimore orioles and purple martins. This is the week of Cottonwood Yellowing Season and Joe Pye Seeding Season, the time of Three-Seeded Mercury Season and Great Blue Lobelia Season. It is the week that Spiderweb Weaving Season becomes more noticeable throughout the woods, spiders taking all the prey they can before cold settles in. Firefly Season moves to a close as Late Summer Monarch Butterfly and Swallowtail Butterfly and Imperial Moth Seasons swell. As Apple Windfall Season pulls windfall apples to the earth, Autumn Yellowjacket Season reaches Yellow Springs.

Week 3
The third week of August brings Judas Maple Time to the surrounding area. Complementing that maple season, Sumac, Poison Ivy and Virginia Creeper Reddening Seasons grow along the fencerows. In the woodlots, Wild Plum Season compounds the sweetness of Elderberry Season. Deep in the woods, Puffball Mushroom Season commences as the Whip-Poor-Will, Cedar Waxwing and Catbird Migration Seasons open. In South Glen, Goldenrod Season presages September as Ironweed Season and Wingstem Season continue to brighten the fields, and the height of Tall Bellflower Season softens the mood of the decaying undergrowth with stalks of powder blue.

Week 4
The last week of August brings the peak of Purple Pokeweed Berry Season in the alleyways, Beggartick Flowering Season in the garden, Bur Marigold Season in the wetlands. Burrs of the tick trefoil stick to your pants legs as Tick Trefoil Burr Season begins. Hickory Nutting Season spreads across the forest floor. Deep in the woods, the final days of this year’s wildflowers coincide with the first days of the Season of Second Spring, a season that lasts well past February. March’s purple deadnettle comes up in the garden, initiating its eight-month season of growth and flowering. The garlic mustard that will flower two Aprils from now sprouts in the rain. Next May’s sweet rockets and sweet Cicely grow back, and next July’s avens send up fresh basal leaves.