The gardens in which I have spent time have distinct peaks. In maritime climates it is surely mid summer—the warmest months during which the days are long but not terribly hot and everything gently blooms. Winter in the tropics has the consistent charm of fooling the senses, although I find palms melancholic on those days when a cold front nudges perilously near. It is the continental climate, however, which has the most dramatic time of year. There are five or six weeks shared between September and October when summer barrels into autumn and neither gives an inch of ground. And while this fifth season might make dressing difficult, it does produce some of the better moments in the garden.

This is the best time for produce. Tomatoes are associated with high summer, but the best I’ve had hung heavily on the vine through September. Tender zucchinis and cucumbers give way to hardier winter squashes, although both seem to fight for room in the farmer’s bins at market. Robust greens begin appearing, many as tender, immature versions ideal for raw salads. My herb garden goes wild; tarragon becomes leggy, thyme ranges about desultorily, rosemary, after politely occupying a modest corner of the planter, doubles itself in a macho display of preparedness for the cold. Basil is the best though. It has flowered and grown woody, a wild and weed-like shadow of its lush, midsummer self. Many people pull their basil out after it bolts; I still eat it though, its sweet, herbaceous profile having turned metallic and almost curry-like.

The official flower of the fifth season is the hardy mum, a cold-resistant and late-blooming cultivar of the Chrysanthemum. These fly from the shelves of garden centers like pumpkin-spice lattes the weekend following the first cool-snap. I adore mums, but I am an inveterate cynic—the sort who grumbles beneath his breath at the sight of apple orchards that sell pre-picked bags of apples alongside carnival rides and artificially-flavored apple donuts. Autumn can’t be commodified! It would be sad to cheapen the mum into little more than a brief, autumnally colored caprice. I prefer to plant mums early in spring in a sunny but protected spot with good drainage. They will remain green and uninteresting until fall, when the shorter days and longer nights lights some deeply encoded chemical fuse that explodes in burgundy and amber come October. To maximize the effect, new growth should be regularly pruned through spring and summer, encouraging a denser plant with more buds.

Speaking of pruning, the fifth season is ideal for lazily wandering between plants snipping here, trimming there. I’m not suggesting serious work though; real pruning is best done to shrubs in the spring so as to encourage compact and even growth. Actually pruning isn’t even the right word. Most of what gets removed is already dead, like fully spent blooms, wind-snapped stalks or annuals that have punched themselves out. I don’t work up a sweat, and if I feel one coming on I go back to the house for a refill. But it isn’t all pastoral bliss; sometimes a tough decision needs to be made. Annuals that straggle despite facing certain death deserve a quick and dignified end. A sharp spade to the root ball should do it.

The exclamation point at the end of all this sputtering life and solemn decay is the bonfire. I collect a season’s worth of trimmings and scraps, and despite late-summer’s frequent squalls, the mound is brittle tinder come the end of the fifth season. A good bonfire will burn evenly and predictably if care is taken in its construction. The foundation must be the lightest and driest material, followed by increasingly substantial layers of sticks, branches, scrap wood and logs, all steepled and interlocked so air may pass through and feed the boiling center. But the vital ingredient is patience; igniting the pyre on an evening when summer still hovers on the air has the syrupy effect of Auld Lang Syne a month too early. Resist the first few cool evenings until certain autumn has firmly taken root; the reward is the fifth season’s last and most magnificent bloom.