Surrounded by Flowers
Early June is such a great time for the flower gardens.
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| Bonica Rose |
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| Carpet Rose |
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| Lavendar |
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| We have scads of clematis this year. |
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| Clematis Jackmanii |
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| Clematis Niobe |
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| The hanging basket by the front door. |
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Iris
These lovely purple beauties are blooming all over my garden.
Old style short irises and lavendar colored moss phlox.
Regal and beguiling. Read more...
This and That
This has been a strange week. My poor husband was quite ill Friday and Saturday, then had a biking accident Monday (he's okay now, though still in pain). Then I spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday with whatever illness my husband had. And truly the effects lingered until this morning.
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| The big greenhouse at Frederik Meijer Gardens |
Thursday I dropped our son off with his grandparents at Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan, (and then I had to go to work in my windowless cubicle while he looked at butterflies and lush gardens full of blooming daffodils and hyacinths), and we spent the evening at the lovely English Inn in Eaton Rapids, Michigan.
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| The English Inn |
We had a fantastic dinner, though I must have overestimated my regained health as the next morning I felt rather like I'd really overdone it (maybe the duck sausage in puff pastry and rack of lamb wasn't the smartest thing to have after having a stomach bug).
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| Sunset Thursday night after a terrific storm. |
But through most of the week, the weather was sunny (though seriously too hot for March . . . 85? Really?) and the flowers and trees were blooming. There was fantastic storm late afternoon Thursday, and as I ate lamb by the window of the inn the sun was brilliant ni the western sky even as the clouds emptied out upon the slate roof overhead. After dinner we took a walk by the river and considered the merits of living by a river or stream (we've agreed that this would be marvelous).
Today I worked, cleaned the house, and made BBQ chicken in the sprinkling rain for my sister and her family who were stopping by on their way to the airport in Detroit for a family trip. So that means good old Max the dog will be staying at my house for a while.
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| I did this to poor old Max Christmas 2010. It made him feel special. I'm sure of it. |
Poor old Max. He really can't hear anymore and he has a lot of trouble with our stairs. These two things are made especially sad when you know how much Max loves to follow me from room to room (as he does my sister at his own house). Now when I go around a corner too fast he loses track of me because he can't see or hear me. It used to bother me how he insisted on following me from room to room when I watched him because I would always be tripping over him as I turned to go back. But now I'm turning back to find him and waving my hands and stomping my feet to show him where I am. Sad to think that both he and our dog Sasha probably won't live more than a couple more years.
During my sickness and my night at the inn I've been reading Virginia Woolf's abridged diaries with great interest. Begun when she was just a year older than me and kept until her death, they are thus far a fascinating glimpse into a slice of WWI-era England (the intellectual slice) and I'm having an excellent time getting to know her better. It will be interesting to follow her through the next twenty-one years (I'm in 1920 now) to her suicide in 1941.
I'm also considering whether the time is approaching when I might prefer to keep my thoughts in that more traditional form where one doesn't have to censor oneself, nor think of her readers. Perhaps the time for blogging will come to an end. Perhaps the time for using all my free time sewing will come to an end and I will simply sew on occasion. I feel more and more the pull to use my time differently, in study of the Word, prayer, reading, and for my own serious writing. Though I can envision a place in that future for my literary blog, The Books I Should Have Read.
I'm nearly through what I think will be the last revision of my novel before looking for an agent. Just 2/3rds left to go (though that will be the more difficult portion of the manuscript as it needs the most thought). Reading the thoughts of a great writer such as Virginia Woolf inspires me to spend serious time in that pursuit. Virginia published her first novel, The Voyage Out, at the age of 33. As I am 32, I feel it more than coincidental that I picked up her diaries in January and began to read them this spring.
It will be interesting to see what the rest of the year brings into focus for me. I can't help but feel that the frantic, rushing springtime will affect many of us in strange ways.
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| Crab apple blossoms in Grand Rapids, MI |
Lenten Rose
>> Sunday, March 18, 2012 –
Christianity,
flowers,
garden
With spring sprung so early, we have many flowers already blooming. One of the most beautiful, yet least noticed because their heads are bowed as in prayer, are the Hellebore, or Lenten Rose.
Today I finished reading Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, which I chose to read during Lent as I had never actually read it before.
After I turned off my Kindle, I took a short walk outside to snap some pictures of scilla, daffodils, and the just-emerging rhubarb and onions. Most of the perennial flowers are pushing up their first leaves. Chives are already ready to be harvested and will grace our dinner of poached eggs and toast tonight.
But far and away the most lovely sight were the Lenten Roses, a delicate reminder of this precious gift of an early spring. What is so appropriate is that to enjoy these flowers, you really have to get on your knees and bow down low to the ground. Which, after all, is just the position we should be in during Lent.
Read more...
September Wildflowers
>> Tuesday, September 20, 2011 –
flowers,
Lake Louise,
Michigan,
nature
While the trees are beginning to think about settling down and most wildflowers have already gone to seed, there are still some showstoppers out there, providing late-season nector for pollinating insects. Here are a few I saw at Lake Louise last weekend.
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| Many varieties of aster bloom in the fall. |
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| Asters and goldenrod. |
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| It appears that lichen (whch is what this looks like to me) has some form of bloom or way of spreading spores or something. I'll have to do a little research about this. These tiny "flowers" were only about 1 cm tall. |
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| Cardinal flower, like the bird, is named after the robes/hats of Catholic Cardinals. |
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| Fringed Gentian is a true biennial (lives two years, blooming and reproducing only in its second year) and it relies on a mycorrhizal relationship to survive (much like lady slippers) so it should NEVER, EVER, EVER be picked or transplanted. Please! |
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| Close-up of goldenrod (part of the aster family) with a soldier beetle feeding on nectar. |
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| I can't find this in my Michigan wildflower book, but this tiny flower looks a lot like larkspur (bloom and leaves) so I'm guessing it may be in that family. |
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| Another one I can't identify. Very, very small. Maybe the size of a dime. Anyone know what it is? |
What is your favorite autumn flower, wild or domestic? Read more...
Nasturtium
If you can't bring yourself to chomp on such beautiful flowers, you can always add the peppery, lily-pad-shaped leaves to salads. But there's no prettier garnish than one of these blooms.
When I think October, I think . . . pink?
I took a quick tour around the house the other day and discovered there are still a few bits of summer color left here and there. Even in the last week of October, there's more than just maple and oak leaves vying for attention. Though they seem out of place in a sea of red, orange, and yellow leaves, much of the late season color is on the pink side.
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| One last beautiful pink rose. |
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| Coralberries - I have two small bushes that were a gift from my friend Valerie. |
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| The lovely hues of huechera (aka, coral bells). |
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| The black, partially opened seed pods of baptisia (aka, false indigo) make me think of some primeval jaws opening. This is not pink, but it is interesting, so I thought I'd share it. |
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| A line of Japanese anemone flowers. |
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| Soft light filters through a cosmo. (Is that the proper singular of cosmos?) |
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| I grabbed up what I could (cosmos, nasturtium, and some Japanese maple leaves) and made myself a tiny bouquet for my desk. |
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