Late summer is the season of meadows

In early April, my favorite wild places in Georgia are mountain woodlands where abundant spring ephemeral wildflowers — violets, trilliums, trout lilies, toothworts, blood root, anemone, saxifrage and the like — cast a spellbinding, yet short-lived beauty before the deciduous trees leaf out. With the first hints of summer in June, the flowers are gone, staying dormant until next spring.

But no worry. In late summer and early fall (autumn starts on Monday, Sept. 23), I have other favorite wild places — sunny meadows that burst with life, with riots of bright, colorful wildflowers whose beauty takes my breath away. To me, this time of year always has been the season of beautiful meadows.

There are many types of meadows. Some folks even label old pastures, hayfields and fallow fields as meadows. Even some power line rights-of-ways are called meadows. My idea of a meadow is an open, grassy ecosystem teeming with sun-loving wildflowers and insect pollinators and the like, where nature can follow its own course, at least most of the time — where a multitude of native non-woody plants, insects, birds and animals compete, coexist and survive as best they can.