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Category: flowers

Redbuds!

Redbuds!

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Every year I obsess over a new type of spring bloom. This year, it’s the redbud tree. I’ve admired them forever, of course. On the long drives to Kentucky I would see wild ones blooming in the mountains, sometimes whole swatches of them coloring the hillsides.

Unlike the delicate cherries of early spring, the redbud is vibrant, bold — an azalea-hued plant that doesn’t wait till late April to show its bright color. 

I’ve photographed several of them lately and covet one for the yard. I have just the spot for it. 

Impressionistic View

Impressionistic View

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Most days I have little choice about which walk I take. I have 30 or so spare minutes, and I sandwich in a stroll between meetings and deadlines, taking the most expedient route — the one out my front door, down the main drag in the neighborhood and back.

But yesterday, I had a little more time, so I picked a paved path that runs along the Fairfax County Parkway because it afforded the best view of blooming Bradford Pear and Redbud trees. I’d been seeing white petals blowing in the breeze like so many springtime snowflakes, and I figured if I was going to see the pears, I’d better do it soon.

The parkway path provided a broad-stroke, Impressionistic view of spring, the kind seen from a distance. It made me feel as if I had traveled far, when actually I was only a few miles from home.

An Excellent Trade

An Excellent Trade

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Every year in early spring I try to organize the two climbing rose bushes that clamber over the pergola on the deck. So yesterday, I ventured forth with clippers and gardening gloves and a ladder to snip off the deadwood and re-attach boughs with twisty green gardening wire.  

A new task this year was freeing the detritus that collects under the tangle of limbs. This meant holding up the thorny wood with one hand while sweeping the gunk out with another, all while balanced on a ladder.

By the time I was done, I had leaf bits in my hair, black smudges on my face and pricked fingers and thumbs (the gardening gloves can only do so much). I was, in short, a mess. But the rose … it was looking pretty good. Maybe it’s just where I am now, but I consider this an excellent trade. 

(The rose at the beginning of its blooming period last year.) 

Celebrating Crocus

Celebrating Crocus

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This morning, a celebration of crocus, of the all the new ones that have sprung up in the yard this year, apparently dormant for several years but making their appearance now thanks to time and warmed earth.

There are clumps of crocus by the street, around the tree and amidst the laurel in the front garden. They are pale lavender, rich purple and creamy white.

Though I think of crocus as shy flowers, in company they project a bright and jaunty beauty, a kind of brazen, “let’s do it” approach that makes me admire them for their bravery.

Auguring Good

Auguring Good

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I don’t want to write about politics all week, but it’s difficult to think about much else these days. I’m also trying not to read too much into omens and symbols, though I do anyway. Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong time or culture, because I do more than my share of knocking on wood. 

Yesterday, hoping that my candidate will prevail, I took comfort in the fact that the climbing rose is still producing lovely, creamy pink flowers — even this first week of November. 

And so, although I have already featured the climbing rose in recent posts, I feature it again today. The bloom of a rose, the scent of a rose, speaks of renewal and beauty and augurs many good things. Surely we all need those now.

Second Bloom

Second Bloom

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The climbing roses have thrived this year, and the topmost ones are flowering again. I just snapped this shot today, attempting to capture the creamy springlike hue of the rose along with the first gold tinge of the witch hazel. 

Not for nothing are these called climbing roses. I leaned out a second-floor window to take this photograph. While I enjoy the view from on high, I miss the full effect when I’m more earth-bound. 

Every year at blooming time — the main flowering season in late May and the lesser one in September — I ponder the lesson in this. A reminder to train my eyes upward? To have perspective?

Second bloom means second chances, a bonus, what ought not to arrive but somehow, miraculously, does. In a time of year more associated with fading and dying, these flowers are just coming to life. Maybe that’s why there are second blooms — for the romantics among us who like to pretend there are messages in nature. 

Better Late …

Better Late …

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Most of the crepe myrtles in the neighborhood have long since bloomed and faded. The rose and magenta shades have faded to a translucent brown, the petals have dried and fallen.

But for some reason, the lavender-hued crepe myrtle in the front yard always begins and ends its blooming late in the season. Which means that instead of late-summer color, there’s early-fall color. 

I’ve meant to snap a photo against blue skies and puffy clouds. But those days came and went. Instead, yesterday’s rains have weighted the stems and leaves enough that they’re hanging their heads for a closeup.  I snapped a shot of their muted blossoms in between the showers. 

What Remains

What Remains

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Since mid-June I’ve been in fighting mode.  The day lilies were budding and the deer were biting — and I was determined to win the battle this time. Armed with both liquid and granular deer repellent, I spent time each evening treating the flowers, dousing them with so much foul-smelling stuff that I dared any young buck to come near them.

But the young bucks did — and the young does, too. Apparently they were hungrier or more numerous than usual, because, despite all my efforts, the deer have decimated my day lily crop. The brilliant yellow and orange accents to the pink coneflowers … are not there. It’s a sparser and more monochromatic garden than I had anticipated this spring.

It’s easy for me to be discouraged by such matters, as seemingly trivial as they are. But I realized yesterday that I was looking at it all wrong. I was gazing at the garden and seeing what was not there rather than what is.

So I shifted focus. I skimmed over the stripped stalks, the nubs left by the marauding hordes. Instead, I appreciated the coneflowers, the pink ones and the white ones. I spotted the black-eyed Susans that are just beginning to pop. I took a couple of deep breaths and almost — almost — saw the beauty … in what remains.

(The garden a few years ago, when the day lilies still had a fighting chance.) 

Puddles of Petals

Puddles of Petals

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To love a climbing rose means to accept it in all seasons. Last week it was at its peak, green and pink and aromatic, bursting with life.

This week, there are as many petals on the deck as on the flowers. Today, when the wind blows, it’s raining roses. There are puddles of petals at my feet.

It’s easy to mourn the end of the plant’s most bountiful blooming season.  But there is such beauty in the spent blossoms.

Wild Things

Wild Things

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On yesterday’s walk I marveled at the wildflowers — the daisies and clover and honeysuckle — how they hemmed the sidewalk along West Ox where I was huffing and puffing in the late afternoon humidity.

Last night, I fell asleep to a chorus of frog song, as the critters enjoyed a dousing in the thunderstorms that rolled through our area after dark.

Then this morning, Copper and I saw a fox cross the road in front of us. The creature trotted confidently through our neighbor’s yard, turning his head occasionally to stare at us, as if to ask, what are you doing here?

We live in a tame suburb of Washington, D.C. — but we are surrounded by wild things. And yes, they make everything groovy.


(A tip of the hat to the Troggs and their great one-hit wonder.)