Midwesterners in general and gardeners in particular are profoundly unsettled by good fortune. We were able, for instance, to accept a soft, warm May only insofar as we could regard it as compensation for perennial losses suffered during an especially open winter. When June arrived with gentle rains and no mosquitoes, we began to cast wary glances over our shoulders. Ominous forecasts came and went with no subsequent wrath-of-God wind; no seed-floating torrents; no hammering hail. Plagued by days and then weeks of clear blue skies and gentle breezes, we failed to recognize that the bill had already come due.

Weather wizards chose not to call our sunny-day siege a drought, but the long dry spell walked and quacked like a thirsty duck. Gardens slurped every drop of water we could send their way, and still the phlox drooped forlornly. Grasshoppers filigreed the hostas. Daylilies aborted buds. September arrived in August with crisp lawns and fluttering brown leaves. Dust filled the air and attacked sinuses statewide. Gardens languished, and gardeners shuffled indoors to sulk.

September, a month-long anticlimax, raised false hopes. Clouds towered, thunder rumbled, but the rain gauge gathered more dust than droplets. Adversity! Genuine adversity! Gardeners began to perk up and complain. Now that our figurative pockets were being emptied, we could view the season in perspective.

Yes, the apple crop was meager, but hadn't the peonies been spectacular? Nobody knew what happened to the daffodils--had burrowing creatures decided to revise their menus? Did the historic freeze that shut down septic systems in 90% of local households reduce bulbs to mush? Never mind; the lilacs were sublime. In particular, we were besotted with a specimen called 'Beauty of Moscow,' a fetching creature with frilly, soft pink blooms and a fragrance that ought to be bottled and uncorked in February when hope fails.

The self-seeding annual, Verbena bonariensis, slept in so long that I bought a few replacement four-packs which, of course, prompted a bumper crop of volunteer seedlings in June. By mid-August, the purple bonbons were borne aloft on sturdy stems that stood up to raging winds and supported hordes of butterflies and moths. (If I were forced to limit myself to a single annual, this peerless weaver plant would be my choice.)

And then there was the blessing of birds. A friend favored us with a fencepost birdhouse that caught the eye of nesting wrens within hours. Another wren family set up housekeeping in one section of a decorative cluster of houses perched on an arbor shelf. No matter where I chose to work, I was treated to the sight of those industrious little creatures fluttering back and forth first with nesting materials and then with meals-on-wings for the small fry. My husband and I were so severely chastened by proprietary wrens whenever we ventured too near their nurseries that we altered routes and adjusted maintenance schedules to accommodate our guests. Flickers arrived later to animate grapevines and viburnums with their enthusiastic harvesting forays while finches set the heliopsis to swaying as they perched to gobble seed.

With near-drought conditions, we resigned ourselves to a drab fall, but the muted palette heightens drama when the occasional maple smolders and bursts into flame. Knowing that dry burgundy and claret leaves will soon be stripped away, we pause to savor them like their mellow namesakes and to reflect upon our seasonal balance of fortunes.