Brown Earth

Note: The following essay was prompted in Beth Kempton’s Summer Writing Sanctuary. This year, we did color studies, using them to describe colors in vivid detail to enhance our writing. This is my study of brown.

Losing plants due to the blazing heat is not easy to accept. I was not feeling well enough to water them as needed. In this heat, the brown dry earth looks like a fire has swept through. The dirt is dead and needs amending to help with the water retention and bring the plants back to life.

I wish I could remember to water more so I wouldn’t lose so many plants. It’s not just the loss of the plants but loss of money and time. Money to buy replacements, replant, and hope they make it through the blazing summer heat. Waiting until autumn would be better.

Is this nature’s way of preparing plants for their inevitable dormant phase? Does she have a plan that includes loss of plants, dirt, time, and money?

As autumn approaches, many plants turn brown, die back, and rest until spring. Here in Southern California, we don’t have ice cold winters that plunge our sleeping plants into almost death.

Many trees lose their leaves and cover yards, gardens, driveways and streets with crunching brown and sepia dead leaves. Many trees in my garden don’t shed their leaves, but drop golden brown acorns. My favorite is a Liquid Amber tree whose leaves turn golden yellow, then amber, before turning a fiery red and dropping to the ground.

I look for the first leaf out my window to turn lemon yellow for the welcome of fall — autumn is coming, pushing out the heat of summer. Autumn and winter bring a different kind of loss, but I much prefer it to the things I lose in summer.