There’s something about the first mum I see at summer’s end that compels me to touch it. They remind of the kid who was last to bring a jacket to school as fall stretched onward. It’d be 48 degrees and breezy outside, and I wouldn’t see a single goosebump on his arms. I’d wonder if his arms felt warm to the touch.
This weekend I spotted mums at a local garden center. I touched a pair of them, wondering how they brave the cold the longest of any garden plant that thrives in this area. They were just 1.99 a plant, and now they are part of my garden. I wonder how they’ll fare in the still-hot afternoons of late summer.
