Penstemons: The easy-going Saviours of the Late Summer Garden

Knock,knock  Knock,knock  Well, if no one is home, I'll leave these flowers on the front porch.

In my youth, I was fresh from the suburbs of South California, and the sanctity of our postage stamp lawn (and very private flower bed), and attending my first semester at "University of the Ozarks" in Clarksville Arkansas. It was spring and there were these yellow flowers popping up all over. From the student union I observed a young lady picking some of these flowers and remarked to one of my fellow students that she was going to be in big trouble. He replied,
"What are you talking about. Those flowers are wild. Everybody picks them. You can too, if you want."
Well, I did want, and I spent the rest of the afternoon joyfully picking them and carrying armloads of jonquils up to my dorm room (to the puzzlement of my room-mates), and reveling in their scent while listening to Joni Mitchell on the stereo. It seemed to me to be the scent of freedom.
To this day they are my very favorite flower, and my fall ritual is to plant several hundred bulbs wherever I can find a suitable place. Mostly around my property, but also along the streets and roads around here.
I have discovered a great planting method. I take splitting maul and drive it into the ground. Then I pull the handle around as you would a tiller on a sailboat. Remove the maul and drop in a couple of bulbs, then top it off with some potting soil and wait until spring. In the meantime, drink some hot cocoa and watch a whole season of "Lost".

To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat. - Beverly Nichols

good morning to all the eye's!!! fresh cut hydrangeas, pretty lady roses, lavender, phlox and coreopsis, with little trails of thyme , tarragon and periwinkle, compose my arrangement for the day....

a day i plan on spending in the forgiving, welcoming, scents of the garden.  where i'm not judged and criticized.  yesterday was brutal in the end.  nature can be brutal and thorny, yet always brings beauty in the end.  the geese are flying in, the sun is trying to rise, i don't feel so small outside.  thanks for the fish. 

Cuukoo1:  Outdoor  therapy  I  find  to  be  very  effective  for  restoring  peace  of  mind  after  life  uses  me  for  a  punching  bag.  Hopefully  your  "garden  therapy"  will  do  the  trick  for  you,  if  gives  perspective  &  hope.

I live in an apartment in NYC that I call the bat cave.  Its subterranean but  my kitchen door leads to a fabulous garden full of impatients, hydrangeas rose trees and all that English style green stuff.  And behind the garden is a duck pond.  I ve got it good because I enjoy all this in the middle of the city and I don't have to do any of the hard labor. I'
m taking my coffe outside to enjoy the garden now.  Mr. P, I hope you have have as much fun on the farm as I will during breakfast.    

We have a weed garden, indigenous Illinois grassland plants;sunflowers and cup plants,purple thingys,white thingys,long grasses,flat grasses,and cat tails and milkweed,and little pansys growing in driveway cracks.We sit on the swing to drink coffee and hold hands,or the fire pit/place,or the umbrella table,all adjacent to this little 8foot fenced with found art circle. At the center is a birdbath,and finch feeder.  That's where my pictures of flowers are taken. It is the place here where we absorb tranquility. Up north we share that pond in my pictures. We wish you all could join us for a tea.

http://www.wired.com/culture/art/magazine/17-09/pl_design     this is a unique vertically grown garden in London,12 stories tall

 ooops, only 8 storys tall. I must have had metric conversion wrong. (tongue in cheek)

What lovely writing, such pretty word pictures, from all of you.  I have lavender here, a lot of it, for the down times.  It smells like 'clean' to me; I like that, and it soothes, somehow.

RoadYacht:   You  are   referring  to  your  outdoor  place  of  enjoyment  as  (only)  a  "weed  garden."   One  person's  weed  is  another  person's  beautiful  flower.  I  often  get  off  the  Appalachian  Highway  coming  home  from  the  big  city,  so  I  can  take  the  old  road.  Then  I  get  even  more  specialized,  and  take  the  scenic  paths  that  barely  accommodate  two  cars  {one  car  at  a  time  in  places  where  the  road  crosses  a  stream}.  Suddenly  I  am  back  in  America  a  hundred  or  more  years  ago,  the  barns  are  all  aged  to  perfection,  some  with  signs  urging  me  to  "Chew  Mail  Pouch  Tobacco"  or  "Patronize  Lester's  General  Store."  The  meandering  creek  gurgles  as  it  jumps  down shale  miniature  waterfalls.   The  "wild"  animals  are  so  tame  that  they  do  not  fully  appreciate  the  hazards  of  standing  in  the  road,  or  basking  on  the   parts  that  are  paved.  People  I  don't  know  and  probably  never  will  wave  at  me  or  tip  their  hats.  But  the  best  part  may  just  be  the  places  that  are  allowed  to  just  grow  wild  with  wild  flowers.  Pink  daisies,  white  daisies,  May  apples,  buttercups,  even  dandelions  (whose  leaves  make  the  base  of  a  nice  Summer  salad).  You and  Pinky   are  in  a  patch  of  heaven,  my  virtual  friend...enjoy!

"There's a place way up the mountainside."
 
 
the belfast cowboy

"We see the heather up on the hill..."  And know it is late summer...soon the Maple leaves will tell us autumn is arriving.  I love how a garden indicates the days of the year.

One of my favbourite wee Irish lilts...it DOES mention flowers!
 
Humors of Whiskey

Let your quacks and newspapers be cutting their capers
About curing the vapors the scratch and the gout
With their medical potions, their serums and their lotions
Upholding their notions, they're mighty put out.

Who can tell the true physic to all that's pathetic
And pitch to the divil, cramp, colic and spleen
You'll know it I think if you take a big drink
With your mouth to the brink of a jug of poteen

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh what botheration, no dose in the nation
Can give consolation like poteen me boys.

No liquid cosmetic to lovers athletic
Or bodies pathetic can give such a bloom
As the sweet by the powers in the garden of flowers
Ever gave their own bowers such a darling perfume
And this liquid so rare if you willingly share
To be taking your hair when it's frizzled and dead
Oh the sod has the merit to yield the true spirit
So strong it will shake all the hairs from your head

Then stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh since its perfection, no doctor's direction
Can cleanse the complexion like poteen me boys

While a child in me cradle, me nurse with her ladle
Was filling my mouth with a notion of pap
When a drop from her bottle fell into my throttle
I stumbled and capered clean out of her lap

On the floor I lay crawlin' and screaming and bawling
'Til me mother and father were called to the fore
All sobbing and sighing they feared I was dying
But soon found I only was crying for more.

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh lord how they'd chuckle if babes in their truckle
They only could suckle on poteen me boys

Through my youthful aggression, through times of depression
My childhood's impression still clung to my mind
And at school or at college the basis of knowledge
I never could gulp 'til with whiskey combined

And as older I'm growing times ever bestowin'
On Erin's potation, a flavor so fine
And how ere they may lecture on jove and his nectar
Itself is the only true liquid divine

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh lord, 'tis the right thing for courting and fighting
There's nowt so exciting as poteen me boys.

Come guess me this riddle, what beats pipes and fiddle
What's hotter than mustard and milder than cream
What best wets your whistle, what's clearer than crystal
What's sweeter than honey and stronger than steam

What'll make the lame walk, what will make the dumb talk,
The elixir of life and philospher's stone
And what helped Mr. Brunnell to build the Thames Tunnel
Wasn't it poteen from ould Inisowen

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh lord, it's no wonder, if lightning and thunder
Weren't made from the plunder of poteen me boys.

You maidens pathetic, with lovers athletic
For liquid cosmetic, you can't beat the drop
With a glow to your cheek, it will make your heart leap
It'll quiet a stallion or cure an old cob
At the mouth you would drool, be reduced to a fool
You'd kick up your heels and you'd peel to the buff
Then 'tis he'd be pathetic while you'd be athletic
If only you'd take a few drops of the stuff

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
For there's nothing like whiskey to make maidens frisky
It soon separates all the men from the boys.

NOTES ON IRISH PRONUNCIATION:

cratur = crit-ther

poteen = potcheen

Inisowen = Inishowen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikx1S4xkElw

An Irish tune is rarely done twice the same...
 

Even better...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mMRMDogu2c&feature=related

And a very sensible couple explain the Irish perspective on moderation...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKIqNTJ-yus&feature=response_watch
 
And sure, you can go down many roads yerself from the beginning that I've given ye...

My prairie grasses have already gone to seed...... when you pull your hands through the ‘drop seed' prairie grasses this time of year, they make the air smell like buttered popcorn. 

The 8' tall ‘prairie dock' and ‘compass plant' stalks in my yard are in late August / early September bloom while their lower leaves are turning into mulch. The ‘rattle snake master' is covered in spiky seed pods and the prairie ‘white lavender' seed pods are in the process of turning black.

The green leaves of the two century old maples that blot out the sun and keep the front of my house in constant shadows are patiently awaiting onset of Indian summer when they will then turn to the dark red, orange and gold colors of fall and then silently and lazily drift down to the earth.

Who needs a calendar?

Olivia - Thank you for the grand links to a path less traveled on this day of flowers. Very touching in its way, it's characters deeply rich.

Make paper airplanes with the pages of the calendar and fly them out the window.

Omg John that was so poetic, doesn't it move with my nostalgic mood from watching too many youtube videos of my second home, and the bittersweet pangs that it brings to my heart this day...

Olivia - I think its the time of year that touches us all today..... when we turn our faces toward the sun so they will remember its warm hands when we need it the most. 

I've always loved this song for days like today...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMJcjMjfFS8

peace out

Penn - My July page landed on the garage...... great idea for a Saturday

Back when I was just a small alley rat my favorite flower was the mighty dandelion that grew up thought the cracks in the concrete. It still is.

  

I had three older brothers, quite a bit older.

They could shake a bunch of cut peonies upside down until hell froze over and never get all the ants off of them.

I could shake them for about a half minute and the ants were all gone. The difference was that I did it over the plant that they had been cut from.

They never knew.

That and the 2009 version of Coppertone ultraGuard sunscreen smells just like peonies which is a very nice thing indeed.

the ants eating the wax off of the peonies...... I think that's late June

the ants eating the wax off of the peonie flowers so that they can open up that is.......

The day has been sweet and melancholy, and I helped the feeling along by listening to every sweetly melancholic song I've got in my library.
 
Eva Cassidy sings here; it's her version of Sting's song, I like hers best of all I've heard.  :
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1jlYMF8QpY&feature=related
 
Is barley a flower?  I suppose it must flower, or there wouldn't be much of it around.
 
I've added "find fields of barley" and "lie in fields of gold" to the Bucket List.  It sounds like something that would be very nice to do.

And after we've found the fields of golden barley, I'm going to find us some "Blooming Heather."
And we'll sit on a mountainside surrounded by heather of every heathery hue.
 
Kate Rusby, with just a little bit of John Hudson on the chorus.  She does this song so very well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3B2mntKAZo&feature=related
 
 
Heather might be harder to find than barley, but like the barley, well worth the effort, if you're willing to believe the song.
 

Unfortunately, even just reading about it makes me....A - A - Achoo!  sorry :)

Bless you.

I cannot think of one flower, even the weeds and the ones that make me sneeze, that I do not love. To me they represent the optimism, love, and beauty of life. Whether picked (or drawn) for me by a child, found miraculously growing amidst abandoned concrete, given in love for any reason or no reason at all, discovered by accident in an unexpected place, planted with the anticipation of blooms to come, or simply pictured in my mind, they never fail to lift my heart. They represent joy and hope even during times of sorrow and despair. Flowers often express feelings better than words.

These words, by Wordsworth, dance with the flowers in my heart...

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

It's supposed to be 45 degrees here tonight......
 

Autumn Harvest -inspired after driving from Tolono, IL to Champaign IL on S. First Street

The cornstalks stand bleached white by the sun,

The beans turn amber in the dying year.

Like mourners at a wake they wish for the sweet green of summer.

The hardwoods, oak and maple stand with their coats aflame.

Flickering orange, gold and red in the autumn sun,

they try to keep the thickening sap flowing warm in their veins.

I too feel the chill of the changing seasons

and love like blood that once ran warm and bright red in my veins - crystallizes,

A ruby jewel is all that is left to mark the time I loved you.

The combines reap the harvest

and leave the fields naked and barren

to face the chill of winter snows. 

Hunters flush pheasant

and hounds scent rabbits

seeking fulfillment of their sacred quest

So I to search for some ember or flame of feeling

But mine are frozen like hoar frost on a slender branch

and leave me standing bereft.

Why is it only with the passing of the year,

the dying of feelings, winter's first frozen touch

that we treasure the fleeting gifts of life?

Bridget McGill

Sadly beautiful...such melancholy and bittersweet memories at the Eye today...I wish there was a way to give everyone a flower...

Tomorrow  when  we  arise  we  will  each  benefit  from  the  sun  lighting  up  countless  flowers,   and  we  will  still  have  our  collective  memories  from  today......

For the fourth anniversary of Katrina, when my friends of 38years,residents of the Quarter,sat at my patio,drinking wine,here in Elgin,watching their beloved city go down,with all their stuff, I drink to the survivors,my friends,that have endured,suffered,survived,and prospered. My friends could wish for more,but are well and healthy. Bill did have a male problem,but had it surgically corrected.Fox had to settle family problems in Oklahoma,and did. She is stuck in Ibiza,at her resort. What an anniversery. Stop and smell the flowers,all. You never know what the winds may bring.

PENN:  What a delightfully novel idea !!!

Brigid..... A perfecstring of words to describe the day.  Very well done!

"Daffodils" was my father's favorite poem.
 
I read it at his funeral.
While my best friend's granddaughter handed daffodils out to all.
 
 
 
These out of season days play games with the psyche.
It's unsettling.

Thank you Park and backatcha