Moody Mellow, Macro Yellow, Monday

Black-eyed Susan. Rudbeckia hirta
(Click to enlarge)

"Where beams of imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away."
~ Alexander Pope

It's a "moody mellow, macro yellow Monday" here with a bright sunny day... finally! A usual August brings dry weather and the wish for rain, but this year we had 5 inches of rain in the first 15 days of the month and oppressive humidity and high temperatures on the days without rain. It is the prevailing "Murphy's Law" scenario... if a construction project is in full swing and you need several days of dry weather to complete many odds and ends of outside work, then you will be guaranteed to get torrential rain storms coupled with prolonged periods of drizzle and light rain...everyday except one. Of course, this will be the day that no one shows up to work. And the project drags on.

It is too hot and humid to go to the botanical gardens right now, but I had this black-eyed susan picture from my last trip in July. It is cheery and bright, inviting to butterflies and bees, as well as to we humans who need a break from the rain and the cares of life. It will have to do for Mellow Yellow Monday and Macro Monday as well.

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Sunshine For The Ground

A mellow yellow macro daisy...
(Click picture to enlarge)

"Bright flowers, whose home is everywhere
Bold in maternal nature's care
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy and sorrow,
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through."
~ William Wordsworth, To the Daisy

It was cloudy with a nice breeze when I left for the botanical garden yesterday. Then, the sun came out and the humidity headed back up and the breeze died down... so I took shelter in the shade of the small gazebo at the edge of the wildflower and butterfly garden. There were lovely coneflowers and yarrow with many butterfly bushes of various sizes and colors and there were daisies. Most were the classic white petal with buttery domed centers.. but a few were what I like to call "designer daisies"; with petals in bright shades of pink, orange, gold and red. Of these... this is my favorite, with more subtle color shades of lavender to yellow in the petals and with the vivid crown of golden grains in the center. I have no idea of the name of this variety... but in the end... it is only what the beholder feels when he or she gazes at this beauty that matters in the long run... what do you feel when you see daisies?

Posted today for Mellow Yellow Monday and Macro Monday. (Yes, late yet again!)

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Keeping Me Guessing

Columbine bud...keeping me guessing.
(Click pictures to enlarge)

"Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar."
~ William Wordsworth, 1798

Usually I try not to mix too many different memes into one post, but I have quite a bit to do today and if I can squeeze it in, I would love to visit the new butterfly outdoor garden and the indoor butterfly house at our botanical garden here in Norfolk. So, for my Mellow Yellow entry I have this beautiful yellow and white columbine that I just cannot get away from. What is it about this flower that intrigues me so? I haven't yet decided, but it grabs my attention, whether at the local nursery, in my cousin's yard, at the highly groomed and polished botanical gardens or in my own flowerbed. Its angles and curves never fail to surprise and it has that amazing shape that morphs constantly. Some flowers are plain and boring before they open and broadcast their beauty for only a short time, then wilt and die. Columbine, on the other hand, teases the spectator before blooming with its lovely green bud.. and throughout the process.. never gives the full hint of the final product. Columbine keeps you guessing!

..Until the final reveal, yellow and white columbine.

"To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music; it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy, than to attempt to fully understand." ~ Henry T. Tuckerman

But the final reveal is definitely worth the wait!

Plumbago auriculata,leadwort or skyflower.
Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

"In the hope of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet." ~ Albert Schweitzer

I understand that these are best grown in Florida and perhaps that is why they flourished in the hot houses of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It is probably not feasible to yearn for these blooms here in Virginia... but we can hope. I am looking for a lovely vine to train up over a trellis that will attach to the new sunroom addition. My dream is to have wisteria for spring, but also to incorporate something that will give us color for the summer months as well. Who knows? My research is not yet complete.. nor is construction....I can only dream at this point.

So, for Mellow Yellow and Blue Monday as well as Macro Monday... enjoy!

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Whiskers Of A Different Sort

Clockwise from top left: Morning glory curls, wild grass,
bearded Iris, enjoying a pumpkin flower.
(Click picture for larger view)

"Who would have thought it possible that a tiny little flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn't room for any other thought...." ~ Sophie Scholl

One of the main characters...of the feline variety... in the mystery series The Cat Who.... books is Koko, a Siamese who yowls when mayhem is happening elsewhere, who always seems to know when the phone is going to ring bearing bad news and whose acrobatic antics result in books falling off the bookshelf with titles that have an uncanny relationship to the crime. His owner, the other human main character, is convinced that the intelligence of a cat is directly related to the number of whiskers... and of course Koko has a disproportionately higher number than most ordinary cats. (Aside: Yes, I know these are not great literature and would be classified as "fluff", but one can only read so many scientific articles and Russian classics with over 2000 pages before it is imperative to add a bit of fun "fluff" just to keep sane. This is my "fluff".) At any rate, whiskers preoccupy the cat... they groom them, keep them straight, twitch them and go nuts if a small piece of sticky tape attaches to one... (no, I never did this on purpose)

But, whiskers are also found on other forces of nature... plants and flowers. The morning glory shows off its delicate, translucent tangle of whiskers in a bloom ready to open... in just another day this flower will have been radiant and then gone. Then there are the whiskers on this wild grass... more sturdy and staid.. each one attached to a small seed, waiting for that strong gust of wind to propel its precious cargo to adjacent soil.

Of course, I love the iris and ours are the bearded variety. This fuzzy little caterpillar growth of whiskers make a platform for the pollen to cling to. This iris was a pale lavender color. My grandmother didn't care for them so she dug them up and threw them over the back fence where they took hold on the bank of the drainage ditch, thrived and multiplied. I brought some of these to our new place as well as the golden yellow variety.

Lastly, the pumpkin flower blossom. I grew pumpkins in the flowerbed at our old house... it was a saga for sure. A bee was gathering the pollen and you can see all the tiny whiskers along the sides of the bloom... the red-eyed fruit flies seemed to enjoy these flowers too. (If you ever took a genetics class in college you will be familiar with these critters... and no, I never saw any white-eyed varieties on the bloom.) If you are interested in a fairytale pumpkin saga... you can find the links to the series here.

These are all whiskers of a different sort and my post for MacroMonday today.

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Longfellow's Yellow

Delicate iris...fair among the fairest.
(Click picture to enlarge)

"Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God."
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Iris

The iris bloomed this year. My mother and grandmother planted the original bulbs in the flowerbed of their home years ago. Each spring they spread and bloomed, becoming thicker. Each year the roots were separated and plants placed further along in the flowerbed until... the entire back corner of the house was surrounded by these big delicate blooms. The flowers were so thick and crowded that the blooms began to suffer, but no amount of thinning prevented their return to the same thickness of the previous year.

In 2008, we sold their house and before closing, I dug up several dishpans of these iris. We live on the edge of a preserve... what I would call swampy wetland. The bamboo-like cane and a variety of wild vines encroach on the free space behind the fence. My interpretation of the "free space" is that it is not our property but we have to maintain it anyway. So I tried to till up a bit of the hard black clay and mix it with sand and soil and here, just at the edge of the preserve, I transplanted some of these iris. We didn't know if they would take hold or die. But here are the results... big, lush blooms just as before.

Now, if I can only find a small tiller and get the rest of them out of the plastic dishpans and into the ground before they multiply too much to separate the roots again. Next year I might have a whole line of defense against that wild stuff in the preserve!

This will be my entry for Mellow Yellow Monday and Macro Monday. I love the little tongue of papillae the iris always have, so that is my macro shot.

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A Blue Macro Monday

Centaurea cyanus, blue cornflower
(Click picture to enlarge)

"Blue thou art, intensely blue;
Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?"
~ James Montgomery

It is definitely a "blue" Monday here. The rain that moved out and gave us a glorious Mother's Day is back... and along with it a gloomy, cloudy, drizzle of a day. With is has come the north winds and the high today of 62 was reached in the wee hours of the morning.... temperatures have been falling all day. In fact it is currently down to 55 degrees... so I am about to scrounge through my closet and pull out a light weight winter sweater to wear this evening. Brrr.... Not to worry though... it will be back up into the 80's by tomorrow, I'm sure.

So, since I missed Macroday's topic "blue" last week and since this has been a "blue" day... and, simply because I love blue flowers... this is my choice. When thinking about coneflowers, this shape is not what first comes to mind. Most cornflowers have the raised gumdrop center with more daisy like leaves. This one, while related is just a bit different. I have seen a variety with more purple in the center and fewer flowers.. they are all beautiful!

Macro Monday photos can be viewed here.

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