Seems like only yesterday I was waiting for the first blooms, the first perfume from the roses, the first buds on the irises, the daylilies and the peonies. Now I step outside and the sights and scents and even the sounds have become different. It's still lush and green because we've had a lot of rain this year, contrary to years past, but the whisper of the leaves in the breeze is a little louder and the perfume of the roses is fading like an old song; the greens are darker, the shadows are lower and I can count the blooms on the fingers of my hands.
The sedum is happy and so are the bees that have now found it.
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And remember the goldenrod that I just knew I lost during last year's severe drought? Nope, didn't lose it.
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Lots of texture and color are coming from the seed pods. Funny that, because this was the first year I had more than one bloom on my magnolia tree and the very first year for any blooms on the mimosa. Happy about both of them. The raintree has been blooming for several years. I like the dark color of its pods.
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For color, you just can't beat the roses, they've been around since May.
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Surprises come along with the blooms from my old Rose of Sharon - the one that came with me from the mountains. All on the same shrub, there will be white and lavender and pink blooms. I never know with that old bush. Love it.
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Forgot these chives were in a pot on my garden bench. They sure didn't forget they were there.
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So the cottonwood leaves are whispering a little louder and the maples are beginning to answer; leaves are drying and that means fall is just around the corner. I really never like letting go of summer, but looking forward to all the color that fall brings.
It isn't really blue.
It's the same silvery glow that spreads out ahead of you and beside you and behind.
There is a difference, but it isn't blue.
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It covers your world in soft layers of gray linen and charcoal blankets and rough pillows of near black.
It sprinkles trails of silver where dew falls and lingers in sparkles beneath your feet.
But it isn't blue.
It softens the calls of katydids and tree frogs and a manly dove cooing to his mate.
It lengthens the reach of the tallest trees and drags the branches down to tangle in your hair.
It falls in straight lines through the lace of a leaf and leaves wrinkles in the pavement of the road ahead of you.
It whispers through the night leaving secrets in its wake and touching cold hearts with its warmth.
But it is not truly blue.
It is the color of home and days gone by and Gramma's night blooming garden.
It is the color of hopscotch and hide and seek behind gnarled trees and Mason jars full of flitting fireflies.
It is the color of dew on uncut grass and four leafed clovers found buried beneath bare toes.
It is the color of your heartbeat when you awaken alone in the dark.
It is not really blue.
Color it harsh in its softness.
Color it loud in its silence.
Color it heavy as it wraps around you and holds you in chains and bonds until finally you find your eyes and stretch your arms and break free and your feet touch the ground and your heart stops its thundering.
But don't color it blue.
~
Sharon Brown, 20 August 2013
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Sometime within the past 10 years I must have lost my mind. Several times. I'm looking out the glass doors and into my back yard - the glass doors are about 12' wide - and sometime along the way I planted without thinking a tiny mimosa seedling, a magnolia seedling, a stick that was half dead but grew to be a smoke tree and in addition to that the birds planted a holly tree and something planted a crape myrtle seed. So within a 12' view I have these trees in a sort of half circle. As I sit here and look out, I realize I'm in the middle. Ten years of growth makes for a lot of width and height. Something's gotta go or I will soon be living in a jungle that will be difficult to enter or exit. |
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Years ago when I was wandering the mountains with Aunt Bett, I knew it as vervain. Somewhere along the way I'd heard it called a 'Love Potion' and when I was about 12 and beginning to see boys as something more than a mere nuisance, I began to think in terms of my future as a wife and mother.
It had a history, a very long history. Known through the ages as a holy plant, a plant that could ward off evil, a plant that would for sure scare away vampires, and a plant that would cause your true love to love you right back - this little purple flowered stalk of a plant became nothing short of powerful to me.
It grew wild in the mountains and unlike the one that has graced my garden this year, it bloomed progressively upward on its stalk.
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Aunt Bett didn't seem to use it for anything in particular, but she did dry the leaves and added them as an herb to some foods and steeped them in hot water as a tea. She called it a tonic.
"Tonics keeps things from ailin' you," she said.
It was one of Aunt Bett's many preventative measures.
So when I was just at the edge of my teens, I started drying leaves too. I sprinkled them like herbs on the grilled cheese sandwiches I made for the only boy I had ever tolerated, the one who climbed trees faster than I could and the one who taught me to ride a sled down that curvy snow covered mountain hollow without crashing. I wanted to make sure he loved me right back.
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When it sneaked its way into my garden this year I had to look twice and search to see what it was, this stranger that looked vaguely familiar.
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I didn't plant it, and it's only one single stalk, but I hope it enjoyed its visit and I hope it returns. Some say it's invasive, and if so maybe it will invade a little corner of my garden. I have plenty of room and it's such a lovely perky bloom. And it brings back sweet memories.
I think I've outgrown the need for a love potion, but love works in unusual ways. Though miles and years apart, that same young man who ate those dried leafy herbs on his grilled cheese sandwiches and who taught me to sail down those rough icy mountain roads on a sled has been one of my best friends for all these years.
I think friendships count.
The daylilies are dwindling; it happens this time of year after 8 or 9 weeks of constant blooming. When I was teaching, it was always a silent signal that my summer break was nearly over, the days when the daylilies dwindled.
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The roses are getting their second wind.
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With the hottest months of the year ahead, there's always something to remind me of the cooler mountains from where I came.
Hibiscus. Rose of Sharon from my grandfather, the lovely pinks from Great Gramma Combs, and the red from Granny Ninna - all quite old, all surviving after all these years away from the mountains, right along beside me.
Look twice at the red, enlarge it, it's glowing.
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There's tansy that came from the mountains, too, keeps the mosquitoes away from my deck. And the golden yellow lilies are from my dearest buddy, PollyK; they are so tall I have to look up to see their pretty faces.
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And in the shade of my garden, there is always Sunshine and her smile.
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