| Where memory meets evidence |
| Episode II Whatever Happened to Autumn? When one season quietly began slipping away |
| Some questions arrive without warning. They are not born in laboratories, universities or television studios. Instead, they appear while standing quietly in a garden, looking at something that feels unfamiliar. Not dramatically unfamiliar—just different. One of those questions has followed me for several years: whatever happened to autumn? I am not suggesting that Britain has somehow lost one of its four seasons. The calendar still tells us that autumn begins in September and ends in November. Trees still shed their leaves, mornings become cooler, and the days shorten exactly as they always have. Yet something about the season no longer feels quite the same. It may be my imagination. Perhaps memory has polished the past until it shines more brightly than it ever did. Or there has been a subtle shift taking place over the course of one lifetime. That, surely, is worth exploring. Like every article in this series, I begin with memory, but I refuse to end there. When I returned to Britain in 1977, the seasons appeared to arrive with reassuring confidence. Spring announced itself gently, summer gathered momentum, autumn had its own unmistakable personality and winter eventually settled across the landscape. It was never perfect, of course. British weather has always delighted in ignoring calendars. We have always joked about four seasons in a single day, unexpected frosts and August bank holidays spent sheltering from the rain. Even so, the year felt as though it moved through recognisable chapters, each with its own character and purpose. Autumn was perhaps the gentlest of them all. The light softened almost imperceptibly. Mornings carried the first real chill after summer. Hedgerows slowly changed colour, gardens began to slow, and there was a quiet acceptance that another growing season was drawing to a close. Nothing happened suddenly. Nature seemed to know exactly what it was doing. Today, I sometimes struggle to recognise that same gradual transition. I am not saying this happens every year, nor everywhere in Britain, but it occurs often enough for me to pause. Summers seem reluctant to let go. Warm weather lingers well into September and sometimes beyond. Then, almost without warning, colder conditions arrive, and it feels as though the season in between has been compressed into only a few fleeting weeks. The autumn I remember was never simply a period between summer and winter. It was a season in its own right. As a gardener, I find timing impossible to ignore. Most people notice flowers when they appear. Gardeners notice when they appear compared with previous years. We notice when leaves begin to turn, when lawns finally stop growing, when perennial borders die back and when the soil starts cooling. Much of gardening has always depended upon observation rather than dates, yet traditional gardening calendars existed because, broadly speaking, nature followed patterns that proved dependable over many years. Those patterns now feel less certain. Grass can continue growing well into November if conditions remain mild. Trees sometimes hold their leaves far later than I remember, only to lose them quickly during the first significant cold spell. During particularly dry summers, leaves may turn brown and fall early without producing the rich colours we traditionally associate with autumn. In other years, prolonged warmth encourages plants into unexpected bursts of late growth or flowering. None of these things is entirely new, but together they create the impression that autumn no longer behaves with quite the same consistency. Of course, there is a danger in trusting memory too readily. Nostalgia has an extraordinary ability to smooth away inconvenient details. We remember glorious displays of autumn colour but forget the years when storms stripped the trees almost overnight. We remember crisp October mornings and overlook weeks of drizzle. Childhood memories are especially selective because they are shaped as much by emotion as by observation. That is precisely why memory alone is never enough. It asks worthwhile questions, but evidence must help provide the answers. Historical records remind us that British autumns have always been remarkably variable. There have been exceptionally warm Octobers long before climate change became part of everyday conversation. Late leaf fall is not unique to the twenty-first century, nor are wet, windy or unusually dry autumns. Yet those same records also indicate that average temperatures have increased over recent decades and that the growing season has gradually lengthened across much of Britain. That does not mean every autumn is warmer than those of fifty years ago. It means the background against which autumn unfolds has changed. This idea of the changing baseline is something I touched upon in the previous article about the summer of 1976. Individual weather events have always occurred, but they now take place within a climate that is, on average, warmer than the one many of us grew up with. A gardener understands this instinctively. A single warm week means very little on its own. A succession of warmer months changes the behaviour of soils, plants, insects and wildlife in subtle ways that only become obvious after many years of observation. One of the greatest privileges of gardening is that it teaches patience. Nature cannot be hurried. Trees become dormant when conditions tell them to, not because the calendar reaches a particular page. Seeds germinate when the circumstances are right, not because a gardening book says they should. Gardeners spend their lives watching these quiet conversations between weather, temperature, moisture and daylight. It is through thousands of small observations—not dramatic events—that longer-term change slowly reveals itself. There is, however, another possibility that deserves equal consideration. Perhaps autumn itself has not altered as much as I believe. Perhaps I have changed. As children, we experience time differently. Summers feel endless. Autumn seems to linger for weeks. Bonfires, damp leaves and shortening evenings become woven into memories that grow stronger with age. Adults measure time differently. Years pass more quickly and seasons seem shorter simply because our perception of time has changed. It would be foolish to dismiss that possibility. This is exactly why memory and evidence need one another. Memory provides the questions. Evidence keeps us honest. Neither is sufficient on its own. Without memory we might never notice gradual change. Without evidence we risk mistaking personal nostalgia for objective truth. As I walk through clients’ gardens today, I often wonder how gardeners beginning their careers now will view the seasons. Will mowing lawns in late November seem perfectly ordinary? Will traditional gardening calendars become little more than historical curiosities? Will future gardeners wonder why earlier generations expected autumn to behave so predictably? Or will nature, as she so often does, surprise us once again and remind us that she refuses to conform to human expectations? The older I become, the more comfortable I am admitting that I do not know all the answers. Something is refreshing about uncertainty when it is accompanied by curiosity rather than complacency. Too often we mistake confidence for wisdom. In reality, wisdom usually begins with recognising the limits of our own knowledge. That may be the real purpose of Within Living Memory. Not to provide definitive answers, nor to persuade readers to adopt a particular viewpoint, but to ask better questions. Whatever happened to autumn? My own conclusion, for now, is that autumn has not disappeared. It still arrives faithfully each year. Yet, in parts of Britain, it often feels less distinct than the season I remember. Whether that impression results entirely from a changing climate, partly from natural weather variation or partly from the way memory reshapes the past remains an open question, and one well worth continuing to explore. After all, every season tells its own story. Sometimes the greatest changes are not the dramatic ones that dominate newspaper headlines. They are the quiet alterations that reveal themselves only after decades of careful observation. One ordinary afternoon, standing in a familiar garden, we suddenly realise that something we have known all our lives no longer feels quite the same. That could be one of the gifts of growing older. Not certainty, but perspective. And perhaps perspective is the most valuable tool any observer of the natural world can possess. |
| About our writing & imagery Most articles reflect our real gardening experience and reflection. Some use AI in drafting or research, but never for voice or authority. Featured images may show our photos, original AI-generated visuals, or, where stated, images credited to others. All content is shaped and edited by Earthly Comforts, expressing our own views. |
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