Goodbye to St. Martin's Summer

My violas and pansies have needed watering every day since we have had such a prolonged stretch of St. Martin's Summer. When I lived in New England I called these warm days Indian Summer. I first read of the Saint's summer in "The Garden in Winter", by the incomparable Elizabeth Lawrence. She devotes an entire chapter to it, and to the flowers that linger or prefer the autumn air. In Tennessee ,garden centers sell pansies as "winter survivors", and southerners bed them out to replace summer annuals. I prefer the smaller violas- the "Johnny-Jump Ups"- because their flowers are more in scale with their groundhugging rosettes of leaves. But all members of this ancient tribe are welcome in my window boxes. And today they have company, for my miniature daffodils are coming up around them. In November!