Georgia Nature Guide: September 2026
September is the turn toward fall in Georgia — songbird and hawk migration peaks, goldenrod and asters blanket the fields, and monarchs begin staging on the coast. The first cool fronts break the summer heat and the markets shift to muscadines and the early greens.
What to look for this week
- Christmas Bird Counts wrap up across Georgia as wintering waterfowl crowd the coastal impoundments at Harris Neck and the Altamaha, and rafts of ducks fill the Piedmont reservoirs.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short, sharp burst around January 3 — best after midnight from a dark north Georgia mountain ridge or the unlit Okefenokee.
- Cold frames and row covers keep collards and kale growing on the Coastal Plain, while mountain gardeners order short-season seed before favorites sell out.
Birds This Month
September is one of the great migration months in Georgia, when the fall songbird wave pours south. The woods fill with passage warblers — American Redstart, Black-throated Green, Magnolia, Cape May, Bay-breasted, Blackburnian, Tennessee, and Northern Parula — along with Red-eyed and Philadelphia Vireos, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Scarlet Tanagers, and flocks of thrushes moving by night. The fall fallouts at Kennesaw Mountain near Atlanta and the coastal hammocks can be spectacular on a cold front. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds stream through the gardens at peak numbers.
Raptor migration builds — Broad-winged Hawks form swirling kettles over the ridges and the Piedmont, with Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Mississippi Kites, and falcons on the move, and the north Georgia mountain overlooks become hawk-watch sites. On the coast, fall shorebird migration continues on the mudflats, the first wintering ducks arrive, and monarch-following birds and migrant Peregrine Falcons hunt the barrier islands. The first wintering sparrows trickle into the old fields, and resident Brown Thrashers (the state bird), Carolina Wrens, and Northern Cardinals begin to refill the quieting woods.
What's Blooming
September is the height of Georgia's fall wildflower season, the composites blanketing the fields and roadsides in gold and purple. The goldenrods reach their full glory, joined by sweeping drifts of asters — white, blue, and purple — the tall purple ironweed, dusty-rose joe-pye weed, white boneset and frostweed, and the late sunflowers, blazing star (liatris), and partridge pea. Along the streams and wet ditches the scarlet cardinal flower finishes and the yellow swamp sunflower and sneezeweed peak.
In the Coastal Plain longleaf flatwoods the fall savanna flowers bloom — late blazing star, deer-tongue, golden-asters, and the wet-savanna orchids and pitcher plants. The native passionflower fruit ripens on the maypop, and the muscadine and wild grapes hang heavy. Gardens stay rich into the cooling weather with the last crape myrtle, lantana, salvias, zinnias, marigolds, and the surprise spider lilies and autumn crocus, while the swamp sunflowers and fall asters draw the late butterflies and migrating monarchs.
Garden This Month
September is prime fall-planting season across Georgia as the first cool fronts break the summer heat. This is the second great planting window of the year: sow the cool-season greens and roots — spinach, lettuce, kale, collards, mustard, turnips, radishes, carrots, beets, and cabbage — and set out transplants of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and collards for a fall and winter harvest. In the warmer regions, slip in a final crop of bush beans and squash for a quick harvest before frost.
Keep harvesting the last summer crops — okra, southern peas, peppers, eggplant, and the fall tomatoes — and pull spent plants to the compost. Plant garlic and multiplying onions late in the month, divide and plant perennials in the cooling soil, and set out cool-season annuals like pansies and snapdragons toward month's end. This is also the ideal time to sow or overseed fescue lawns in the Piedmont and to plant trees and shrubs while the soil is warm and the roots can establish before winter. The Georgia garden gets a welcome second wind.
Zone 7b (Piedmont & metro Atlanta): the fall garden hits its stride as the heat breaks. Sow spinach, lettuce, kale, mustard, turnips, radishes, and carrots, set out collard and cabbage transplants, and plant garlic and onions late in the month.
Zone 8a (lower Piedmont & Fall Line): prime fall planting. Direct-sow the full range of cool-season greens and roots, set out broccoli and cabbage transplants, and keep the last summer crops watered as the nights cool.
Zone 8b (Coastal Plain & coast): the main fall window opens as the heat eases. Sow greens, carrots, beets, and turnips, set out broccoli, cabbage, and collards, and plant a fall crop of bush beans and squash for a harvest before the late frost.
What's at the Farmers Market
September markets in Georgia mark the turn from summer to fall produce. The muscadine and scuppernong grapes are at their peak — the native Southern grape, sweet and musky — and the first apples arrive from the north Georgia mountain orchards around Ellijay, the heart of Georgia apple country. The last summer crops linger — tomatoes, okra, southern peas, peppers, eggplant, melons, and sweet corn — while the fall vegetables begin: winter squash, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and the first greens.
Choose muscadines plump, dry, and unbruised and refrigerate them to eat within several days; pick mountain apples firm and heavy and store them cold, away from other produce, for long keeping; and select sweet potatoes firm and unblemished, storing them cool and dry but never refrigerated. The fall greens — collards, kale, mustard, and turnip greens — return crisp and tender; keep them cold and humid in the crisper. Look for fresh-pressed apple cider, pumpkins for the season, and the value-added Georgia staples — honey, sorghum, and stone-ground grits — as the autumn market season opens.
Night Sky This Month
September's cooling, clearing nights make for excellent stargazing as summer haze gives way to crisper autumn air. Georgia's dark-sky sites are at a comfortable best — the north Georgia mountains around Brasstown Bald and Black Rock Mountain State Park, the deep Okefenokee at Stephen C. Foster State Park, and the unlit beaches of Cumberland and Jekyll Islands. Fall star parties at the state parks and through the Atlanta Astronomy Club mark the season.
The transition is on view: the summer Milky Way still arches overhead through the Summer Triangle in the early evening, glorious from a dark site, while the autumn stars climb the east — the great square of Pegasus, the chained princess Andromeda, and, under dark skies, the faint smudge of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the most distant object visible to the naked eye, riding higher each night. The fall equinox falls near September 22, balancing day and night. There is no major meteor shower this month. The printable Georgia night-sky guide lists this year's planet positions and the best regional dark-sky sites for autumn.
Butterflies & Pollinators
September brings the great monarch migration to Georgia, the most stirring butterfly event of the fall. The southbound monarchs move down the state and stage along the coast — St. Simons, Jekyll, and Cumberland Islands can hold concentrations of fueling butterflies before the long crossing south, nectaring on the coastal goldenrod and saltbush. Cloudless sulphurs stream south in a strong directional migration alongside them, a yellow river across the Coastal Plain.
The fall broods are everywhere: the gulf fritillary is abundant on the passionflower, the swallowtails fly on — eastern tiger (the state butterfly), spicebush, black, and the coastal palamedes — and the meadows fill with common buckeyes, painted and American ladies, red admirals, pearl crescents, and clouds of skippers. The fall flowers carry them: watch the goldenrod, asters, ironweed, mistflower, frostweed, and garden zinnias and lantana, alive with nectaring butterflies on warm afternoons. Plant or protect milkweed, passionflower, and fall nectar to fuel the migration. The pollinator garden has one last brilliant flush before the cool sets in.
Trees This Month
September brings the first real touch of fall to Georgia's trees, the change beginning early in the wetlands and on the highest north Georgia slopes. The earliest color comes from the black gum (tupelo) and sweetgum, turning scarlet and burgundy in the swamps and field edges, the sourwood blazing deep red on the mountain slopes, and the sumac, dogwood, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy reddening at the woods' edges. The hickories and tulip trees begin to yellow.
The nut and fruit harvest peaks: acorns drop heavily from the oaks, feeding deer and turkeys, the pecans of the southwest Georgia groves near harvest in the shuck, the wild hickories, walnuts, persimmons, and muscadines ripen, and the dogwood and black gum berries draw the migrating birds. Along the coast the evergreen live oak (the state tree) drops its ripening acorns, and the bald cypress over the Okefenokee just begins to bronze. In the high north Georgia mountains the cove hardwoods are tiring and the first scarlet flares show on the highest ridges around Brasstown Bald — a preview of October's fire.
Go deeper with the Georgia guides
The complete Georgia birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: September in Idaho · September in Illinois · September in Indiana