Flower for the Day Peony III 5-29-2020

The peonies continue to bloom in abundance.

Here is a "double" from the Lake House.

The cut flowers are extraordinary.

though mine
I hesitate to pluck
the peonies
~ Baishitsu

Flower for the Day Peony II 5-26-2020

The peonies have been larger and more abundant than usual this year. This white one is especially nice.

Jan has been very creative with buds and cut flowers this year. She suggests that if you wait for the rock hard bud to soften to the consistency of a marshmallow and then place it in a vase it will slowly open - a breathtaking process. 

Or you can just cut the bloom and place it in a bowl and produce a splendid result.

the applause
of one and all shower
the peony
~ Issa

Flower for the Day Peony 5-22-2020

The peonies have been blooming all week. Here is my favorite.

As a child I had one like this outside my bedroom window.

It is the richest red ever.

When the peonies bloomed,
It seemed as though were
No flowers around them.
– Kiitsu

Flower for the Day White Spiderwort 5-21-2020

This white spiderwort (Tradescantia) appeared in the gnome garden about a year ago. I have had purple spiderwort for more than a decade. The delicacy of this flower is enchanting. Each bloom lasts for only one day but the plant flowers newly for over a month.

In the dew of little things,
the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Kahlil Gibron

Flower for the Day Iris III 5-20-2020

Every few days new iris appear - exciting.

Here is another special one.

In case you missed it this poem is also special.

           An Iris

I write on your soft petal;

'Dear inside and outside

it's really painful the life.'

And I remember you whispered;

'Hide in me and I try to

minimize your irksome feelings.'

for Bertolt Brecht!

nimal p dunuhinga

In these days when the life seems really painful  can

you count on 'An Iris' to minimize your irksome feelings?

Flower for the Day Dames Rocket 5-19-2020

Dames Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is one of my favorite wildflowers. It has numerous common names, including  damask-violet, dame's-violet, dames-wort, dame's gilliflower, night-scented gilliflower, queen's gilliflower, rogue's gilliflower, summer lilac, sweet rocket, mother-of-the-evening, and winter gillyflower. 

I love its color and that it moves around in the garden areas for brief periods. Each year it appears in different areas but never for long.

Dames Rocket is confused with phlox. Dames rocket has alternate leaves and four petals per flower while phlox

has opposite leaves and five petals.

Four states have it on their invasive list. I have not found it to be invasive but a friend in colorado said the state

came onto her neighbors property and removed the dames rocket. Interesting.

Flower for the Day Forget-Me-Not 5-18-2020

These  forget-me-nots (Myositis scorpiodes) were right in the middle of an overgrown trail in the woodlands.

Their name was calqued (borrowed whole) from the German Vergesmeinnicht by the English by 1398.

 

My close up image was out of focus. When I went back the next day this is how they looked.

forget-me-nots
she's kept for years...
what's-his-name

hortensia anderson

Flower for the Day Iris II 5-15-2020

A special iris has bloomed.

          An Iris

I write on your soft petal;
'Dear, inside and outside
it's really painful the life.'
And I remember you whispered;
' Hide in me and I try to
minimize your irksome feelings.'

for Bertolt Brecht!

nimal p.dunuhinga                      

Flower for the Day Viburnum 5-14-2020

Over 20 years ago I put in three small viburnum bushes at the edge of the wildflower garden. Two have been lost over the years. The remaining bush is now a tree.

Its blossoms are amazing this year.The flower formations are called a corymb - the flower cluster lower stalks are proportionally longer so that they form a flat head.

Triple Crown of Spring

Withering daffodils are unnoticed— 

my attention shifting mid-spring

 to what's new, more colorful. 

I try not to see the dandelions,  

glaring like headlights of oncoming traffic 

whose presence will not be denied, 

until beloved hyacinths 

rescue the moment with spires of splendor, 

rising as nature's signets, 

releasing what nostrils crave, 

introducing the triple crown of spring— 

hyacinth, lilac and viburnum.

Copyright © Gerald Greene | Year Posted 2020                 

Flower for the Day Iris I 5-12-2020

The iris have been blooming for about three weeks. Iris is a genus of 300 species of plants with colorful showy flowers. The name comes from the Greek word for rainbow. Iris is the Greek goddess of the rainbow.It is my favorite time of the garden year. Each morning a new iris blooms. This one is always the first to bloom each year,

followed by others in succession.

Iris eyes smiling

back at the man who sees

more than a flower

Judi Walters on March 30, 2011 at 9:38 am

Flower for the Day Allium 5-1-2020

Allium (Allium sativum) is a perennial that is deer resistant. Allium is in the onion family.Deer, like myself, do not appear to like onions. They have been coming up for over a month.

They have a gradual coming out.

Up close they are impressive. It  is an umbel, as is my hoya,

filled with stars of six petalled miniature flowers.

In Praise of Allium

by Denise Levertov

 

No one celebrates the allium.

The way each purposeful stem

ends in a globe, a domed umbel,

makes people think,

'Drumsticks,' and that's that.

Besides, it's related to the onion.

Is that any reason

for disregard? The flowers – look –

are bouquets of miniature florets,

each with six elfin pointed petals

and some narrower ones my eyes

aren't sharp enough to count,

and three stamens about the size

of a long eyelash.

Every root

sends up a sheaf of sturdy

ridged stems, bounty

to fill your embrace. The bees

care for the allium, if you don't ­–

hear them now, doing their research,

humming the arias

of a honey opera, Allium it's called,

gold fur voluptuously

brushing that dreamy mauve.

Flower for the Day Lily of the Valley 5-10-2020

I grew up with Lily of the Valley (Convalleria majalis) outside my dining room window every spring.  I still count on them coming up each year. 

The little down facing bell shaped flowers are hypnotic.

Matthew 6:28,29 

 And why take ye thought for raiment? 

 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; 

  they toil not, neither do they spin:  

 

 And yet I say unto you, 

 That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Flower for the Day Columbine 5-8-2020

My columbine (Aquilegia) is scattered around. Columbine is a buttercup (Ranunculae). This is a lean year for these exquisite flowers. I like the natives the best.

But the hybrids are also interesting.

Nova

Mountain sunshine, take my hand;  

Wrap your warmth around my shoulders;  

Slip your arm within my arm; 

Warm my heart to grow as columbine. 

Mountain moon, weave me a gown; 

Cast in my spirit a summer night serene; 

Braid my hair with silver ribbons; 

Give my face your harvest glow; 

Let me too reflect the sun's light. 

Mountain rains, wash my heart clean; 

Fill up each day with tender grace; 

Create in me a wellspring of peace; 

Give me the melody of rushing rivers; 

Let me share the joy of rambunctious raindrops. 

Mountain wind, give birth to my soul; 

Shake the dust off of my feet; 

Sing me songs of rustling leaves; 

Give me the words to a snowstorm lullaby; 

Send my feet to greet the dawn's light. 

Mountain stars, give me your dreams; 

Diamonds that twinkle to wear for a ring; 

An open heart for a wishing star; 

Shining dreams to hold in the night; 

Make my life a heavenly nova.  

Copyright © Sam Kauffman | Year Posted 2020                 

Flower for the Day Wild Blue Phlox 5-7-2020

Yesterday I took a walk and found this delightful plentiful woodland wildflower. It is wild blue phlox (Phlox divaracata). Its four petals differentiate it from Dames Rocket which has five petals and is up now also.

This is the night of the Flower Moon, the last of the four super moons for  2020.

                     The Man on the Dump

By Wallace Stevens

Day creeps down. The moon is creeping up.

The sun is a corbeil of flowers the moon Blanche   

Places there, a bouquet. Ho-ho ... The dump is full   

Of images. Days pass like papers from a press.   

The bouquets come here in the papers. So the sun,   

And so the moon, both come, and the janitor's poems   

Of every day, the wrapper on the can of pears,   

The cat in the paper-bag, the corset, the box

From Esthonia: the tiger chest, for tea.

The freshness of night has been fresh a long time.

The freshness of morning, the blowing of day, one says   

That it puffs as Cornelius Nepos reads, it puffs   

More than, less than or it puffs like this or that.   

The green smacks in the eye, the dew in the green   

Smacks like fresh water in a can, like the sea

On a cocoanut—how many men have copied dew   

For buttons, how many women have covered themselves

With dew, dew dresses, stones and chains of dew, heads   

Of the floweriest flowers dewed with the dewiest dew.   

One grows to hate these things except on the dump.

Now, in the time of spring (azaleas, trilliums,   

Myrtle, viburnums, daffodils, blue phlox),   

Between that disgust and this, between the things   

That are on the dump (azaleas and so on)   

And those that will be (azaleas and so on),   

One feels the purifying change. One rejects   

The trash.

               That's the moment when the moon creeps up   

To the bubbling of bassoons. That's the time

One looks at the elephant-colorings of tires.   

Everything is shed; and the moon comes up as the moon   

(All its images are in the dump) and you see

As a man (not like an image of a man),

You see the moon rise in the empty sky.

One sits and beats an old tin can, lard pail.

One beats and beats for that which one believes.   

That's what one wants to get near. Could it after all

Be merely oneself, as superior as the ear

To a crow's voice? Did the nightingale torture the ear,   

Peck the heart and scratch the mind? And does the ear   

Solace itself in peevish birds? Is it peace,

Is it a philosopher's honeymoon, one finds

On the dump? Is it to sit among mattresses of the dead,   

Bottles, pots, shoes and grass and murmur aptest eve:   

Is it to hear the blatter of grackles and say

Invisible priest; is it to eject, to pull

The day to pieces and cry stanza my stone?

Where was it one first heard of the truth? The the. 

Wallace Stevens, "The Man on the Dump" from Collected Poems.  

Copyright 1923, 1951, 1954 by Wallace Stevens.

Source: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990)                                             

Flower for the Day Mayapple 5-5-2020

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)is an easily recognizable woodland shade plant. It is also called ducks foot

and American mandrake. It is commonly seen in large cluster.

 

The mayapple flower occurs near the fork of two stems.

 

      Mayapple

I'm trying to get lost
somewhere south along the mountain
when I break through a tangle
of fox grapes and stop short:

an insurgent sea of mayapples
bobs in the breeze, a minature forest.
I remember the stories I've heard
about human-shaped roots

& how they've yielded a new
weapon against cancer.
I think of them crowded together
in the stoney dark. 

We who eulogize private virtue
& small acts of kindness,
have we forgotten the glory
of the grand gesture? I stand 

as immobile as that line of tanks
at the Gate of Heavenly Peace,
unable to go farther without
crushing one or two. 

Their parasols make a brave show,
but they keep their faces down
& their yellow focus on the fruit
they know will come, if only for a few—

fruit that may or may not be digestible,
flowers that may or may not self-pollinate,
depending on the encampment,
& insects that may or may not visit, 

since the mayapples offer

neither nectar nor desirable pollen,

& seem to persist because a few bees bumble
& forget where they are. 

Posted February 8, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Flower for the Day Azalea 5-3-2020

We had rain and the azaleas came in well. I'll let them speak for themselves.

              Azalea Forest

Beautiful pink azaleas are growing here and there,
A touch of surreal pink fills the forest air,
Tall, tall trees beautifully grow;

Oh I love this forest so!
Patches of light-green grass,
Grow here and there on the forest path,
Sunlight illuminates the air;
Birds are chirping without a care.
God created each azalea with love,
Just as He made the beautiful dove,
Evening sunlight dances in the west;
Shining in the Azalea Forest.

Marian, August 2013

Don's Blog How Quickly Life Can Change 5-1-2020

As you all know I have found a natural spring in the creek bed behind our house. I went down to the spring to get a better image. I got one that shows the water coming out more clearly.

 

Jan had previously taken a really great video of the little water fall and the spring.

 Click to Download

IMG_5733.MOV

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Walking up the trail something pierced into my right calf. I think it was a broken stick.  I was wearing shorts and when I looked down there was blood running down the inside of the calf already soaking my sock and into my shoe. I took my sunglasses off ( they are not good for close up vision) and  looked again and there was a stream of blood shooting out of the calf at right angles going almost 2 feet out. I sat down and put my finger over it with pressure and it stopped. There was blood all over the trail and around. 

I couldn't go anywhere with my finger on the leak and with my hat, sunglasses, and heavy camera. Luckily I had my phone with me. Of course I was using my right hand forefinger to stop the blood and the phone was in my right front pants pocket. I switched hands and got the phone. I put it in the trail and went to my contacts list. I went to "Jan" and hit call and then realized I was calling "Jan Sessions in Australia" (a friend of Jan's).  I finally got to the right "Jan" and texted "Call me now". Miraculously she called me. I told her, "I had a situation," and asked her to bring some dressings and bandages. She said, "where are you?" I told her that I was on a trail near the spring I had shown her the other day. I said, "You will recognize me - I'll be the one sitting in a pool of blood in the middle of the trail."

She didn't show up but I got a call. "Where are you?" I said.  She said, "I am at the creek on the trail that goes down from the house." Well it was the right creek but not the right trail. In time she came down the trail to the spring where I am to save me. This is what she found.

You can see my phone and the camera and a folded paper towel that I had in my pocket that is soaked with

blood.

We put a square of  clean paper towel (she couldn't find any dressings) and a large bandaid on the puncture site with pressure. Then we wrapped it with one of Jan's purple bandanas and we walked slowly up the trail. We went to the front of the house and after removing the soaked shoe and sock we washed the blood off with the hose. We changed the dressing carefully but the the puncture started up again spraying the nearby day lily leaves. 

That is definitely an award winning wartime shot by photographer Jan Sessions. We stopped the leak immediately and put on a clean pressure dressing. Jan is definitely a Wonder Woman.

Your life can change in an instant. Wonder Woman is now giving new meaning to 'lockdown'. My wings have been clipped. On the other hand there is nothing better after a situation than tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich. I continue to look forward to life's
upcoming adventures.

Also, in case you wondered , I did not do this: