November Phenology

When all the mums are past their best, then major bird migrations will soon be over for the year.
When the yellow witchhazel still blooms, gardeners should put in spring bulbs and dormant roses, and mulch perennials. Farmers should plant the final winter wheat and complete the harvest of corn of soybeans
When thimbleweed heads are tufted like cotton, then late fall arrives with killing frosts. That’s the time to plan marketing your goat and sheep cheese, Christmas cacti, dried flowers and grasses, poinsettias, mistletoe and ginseng for the holidays.
When Christmas cacti start to bud, then climbing bittersweet opens in the woods and almost every junco has arrived for winter.
The budding of Christmas cacti is also a sign that you should plant your amaryllis and paperwhite bulbs for holiday blooms.
When autumn violets end their season beside the woodland paths, then strawberries can be mulched with straw and peonies divided and transplanted.
When the last maple leaves fall, test the field and garden soil, and mow the lawn for the last time. Dig manure into the garden. Plant next year's sweet peas and spinach. Set garlic cloves for spring.
When all the leaves are down, then fertilize trees and shrubs and remove tops from everbearing raspberries.
As mock orange and forsythia foliage thins, it measures the advance of winter. When all the leaves are down, a killing frost has occurred even in the mildest autumns.
When deer rutting season reaches its peak, then pastures are normally dormant. Only in subtropical Florida do Bermuda and Johnson grass, chenopods and amaranths continue to bloom.
When the poinsettia crop arrives at the market, then the last crickets
die in the cold and many farmers are feeding hay to their livestock.
When beech and pear leaves finally fall, then early winter is only two weeks away and above the Border States, chances for an afternoon in the 70s are now only one in 100. The last bulb planting (including the garlic crop) and perennial transplanting should be done in anticipation of the arrival of the cold. Around the yard, stake young shrubs and trees. Parsley and thyme should be brought inside pots for winter seasonings. Wrap young transplants to protect them against frost cracking.

INVENTORY for the transition to November

The transition from summer to fall begins to gather momentum by the end of August. Judas maples have appeared in woodlots then, and most of the year’s wildflowers and garden perennials have gone to seed. Early September belongs more to July than to October, but after equinox, the canopy colors and falls apart quickly. By Halloween, most of the sugar maples and all of the black walnut, box elder, serviceberry, ash, locust trees have lost their leaves. I keep track of as many changes as I can, trying to fit each fragment of this season with the fragments I remember.
The russets and siennas of the oaks now dominate the countryside north to Lake Erie. In villages and urban areas, most of the silver maples hold their palomino gold. In the alley between High and Stafford Streets, Mateo’s Jerusalem artichokes have broken in the cold.
Starlings spent last winter where the alley meets Dayton Street. They left in the spring but have finally returned to whistle and cackle through the morning. Migrating robins cluck all day long. Small flocks of sparrows flutter through the lilacs. Cardinals are quiet in the neighborhood, quieter than I can remember.
The small blue bindweeds that covered one compost pile have disappeared, and the last hostas have lost their violet petals, but the tall coneflowers that bloomed at the end of late summer still carry a few blossoms. One forsythia branch winding through one of the fences has yellow flowers, but the small white asters have ended their season. One goldenrod, cut back early in the fall, is brilliant yellow, but the chicory has closed for the year.
Redbud leaves are down along High Street, and the weedy trees of heaven are unraveling. Viburnum and oakleaf hydrangea are blushing. Don’s burning bush is still magenta red, but Lil’s has lost most of its foliage. The Danielsons’ maple is completely bare, and Mrs. Timberlake’s is shedding quickly. Bittersweet has opened at the corner of High and Limestone Streets. Blue privet berries are showing more and more now.
But if I look a different way, I see a different season. Osage, beech, mock orange and honeysuckles defy the changes, are full summer green. One pink rose outside my window is opening. In the swamp a mile away, I can reach down through the muck to touch the first skunk cabbage of March.

The Final Week of Middle Fall
The first week of the eleventh month, the last week of middle fall brings the close of Mum Season, Autumn Violet Season, Aster Season, Goldenrod Season and Katydid Season throughout the Miami Valley.
Magnolia Leafdrop Season and Late Sugar Maple Leafdrop Season darken the woodlots. Korean Lilac Leafdrop Season and Quince Leafdrop Seasons end in the garden. White Mulberry Leafturn Season and Ginkgo Leafturn Season brighten the canopy for a few days, then the foliage of those trees shatters overnight.
Early November marks the center of the Season of Second Spring -- Garlic mustard, sweet Cicely, wood mint, burdock, red clover, waterleaf, ground ivy, celandine, sweet rocket, dock, and leafcup have revived and look ahead six months to April. Remnants of summer and prophets of May, late robins cluck in the honeysuckles. A cardinal or two may sing around 7:30 in the morning. Starlings whistle in the bare maples throughout the day. Blackbirds follow the harvest.
In the greenhouse, Jade Tree Flowering Season complements the gathering tide of Christmas Cactus Flowering Season.

The Second Week of November
This week of the year is the first week of the new Season of Late Fall, a time when most of the remaining leaves come down and the contours of the landscape become clear. Across the fields and hillsides, Grazing Season draws to a close as pasture growth slows in the cold. Thinning Season beginning for Mock Orange and Forsythia, their steady leafdrop measuring the last days of the 2006.
The Season of Winter Clouds arrives from the north and west as the average percentage of cloud cover doubles over middle autumn’s average. This week brings the Season of Tufted Gray Goldenrod. It brings Thimbleweed Seeding Season, Beech Leafturn Season and Silver Maple Leafturn Season, Sweet Gum Shedding Season, and Rose of Sharon Leafdrop Season.
Deer Mating Season in the woods coincides with Witch Hazel Blooming Season in the Miami Valley, and the Season of Red Berries throughout the MetroParks as dogwood, hawthorn, bayberry, and flowering crab reveal their color.

The Week Witch Hazels Bloom
Along the highways, ironweed seeds are soft and white when late fall comes. Goldenrod and thimbleweed are tufted like cotton, their foliage deep chocolate brown. Most of the milkweed pods have opened. A few blackberry bushes are bare; others are still red and purple. Mums are past their best, but the witch hazels burst into bloom.
Although many of the osage orange, maples, oaks, beech, pears and sweet gum continue to hold on, the last ginkgoes lose their leaves, magnolias weaken, and cherry foliage turns brown at the edges. The final white mulberry foliage comes down. Scarlet rose hips and the buds of pussy willows stand out. Mock orange, honeysuckles and forsythias are thinning; their leaf-fall measures the progress of the last phase of autumn.
Driving south from Chicago, you can still find early fall, catching up with the best of leafturn in Arkansas. Along the Gulf coast, the trees still hold their foliage, and colors haven't even reached their peak. By the time you go south far enough to recapture middle summer, the monarch butterflies will almost be getting ready to start back north from Michoacán, Mexico, and robins will be restless to leave the Caribbean.
By the time the frost reaches Mobile, Alabama, it will be just about time for it to recede. By the time second spring is halted by snow and cold in Indiana, it will be reaching its fulfillment in Georgia. By the time the last leaves fall in the southern Appalachians during mid December, the first leaves will be emerging in Florida. The last day of harvest in Ohio will be the first day of planting a thousand miles south where the last wildflower of one year will be blooming beside the first of the next.

The Third Week of November
The third week of November is Skunk Cabbage Budding Season, a season in the wetlands that lasts until Skunk Cabbage Blooming Season in February. When the days are bright, the rivers nearby are rippled blue, black, green, and brown, tree branches tangled in dappled reflections.
Now Winter Wheat Greening Season greens the fields, the low sun setting all the new plants glowing. Nourished by the great stands of honeysuckle throughout the area, robins linger in town and in the woods. Starlings whistle at sunrise, and pileated woodpeckers and bobwhites sing off and on throughout the day. Finches work the sweet gum tree fruits, digging out the seeds from their hollows.
At bird feeders, Junco Season adds juncos to the sparrows and cardinals. On the high wires Sparrow Hawk Season arrives just as Bittersweet Fruit Falling Season comes to the bittersweet vines, and Decorative Pear Leafturn Season transforms suburban streets.
Bluebird Migrating Season and Cricketsong Season come to a close throughout the region, and Silver Maple Leafdrop Season foretells next week’s Beech Leafdrop Season.
In the greenhouse, Aloe Flowering Season joins late Christmas Cactus Season and Jade Tree Blooming Season. Along the West Coast, this week is the annual Crab Harvest Season. And Poinsettia Season begins in the Miami Valley as Crawdad Season starts in Louisiana, crawdads moving into flooded rice fields to feed on the remnants of that crop.

The Week Skunk Cabbage Appears
When next year’s skunk cabbage pushes through the mud, summer still retains enough momentum to hold off early winter a little longer. Starlings are still gathering in the wood lots. Autumn violets and pansies can still be blooming. More than a third of the forsythia, silver olive, mock orange and honeysuckle hold on. The pears still have their leaves. Waterstriders still hunt in the sloughs this week. A few daddy longlegs are left in the old wood nettles and touch-me-nots. A few bees still come out, and moths emerge when the temperatures rise into the 60s.
When skunk cabbage appears, new winter wheat has turned fields bright green again. Lawns grow back; they can be long and thick beneath the fallen leaves. Garlic mustard that sprouted fourteen months ago has persevered with only a cluster of basal leaves all summer and fall; the worst cold will not kill it. In the swamp, colors deepen. Protected by the streams, watercress shines; dock and ragwort come back beside the dead field grasses.