Friday, August 1, 2014

Turning the calendar page

Time to turn the calendar page! 
Just like the seasons of nature, seasons of life change, and sometimes I can't help feeling a little melancholy as I watch friends and loved ones age.
I find it a bit easier to embrace the changes of the seasons of nature, and I sense many changes as summer advances and promises to bring fall.  The fall weeds are starting to sprout.  Summer grasses are trying their best to seed.  The days are incrementally shortening.  I mowed the grass again today.  There is lespedeza in the lawn that likes to strut its stuff this time of year.  The common bermuda grass wants to go to seed, and there is a tender grass that grows over the septic drain field that is just hard to stay on top of this time of year.  (No herbicidal soup on the lawn for me; I just mow whatever grows.)  Lots of things are blooming too.  The crepe myrtles are in bloom, and the bark is being exfoliated.  Using the table top tripod my friend Lea gave me,
 
I set up my camera in the window, hoping to catch the little gray gnatcatcher or the summer tanagers that were flitting through the crepe myrtle.  No luck, but I shot a close up of the tree to see how the tripod could help me hold the close up pictures steady.  You can see the lovely cinnamon colored trunks as the bark peels off in sheets.
 
 
The crepe myrtle in the front yard is in bloom, looking classy and elegant with its white and green canopy.

 
 
To the left of the white crepe myrtle is a pink seedling crepe myrtle.  I love the clear pink color.  I kept thinking I would transplant it to my permanent property, but since it seems I'm stuck here, I'm not sure what to do with it.  There is really not room for it in the border it's currently growing in.
 
In the back yard is another pink crepe myrtle.  It was one I dug up at the last place Roger's parents lived.  It usually gets a bad case of cercospora leaf spot, but so far this year, it hasn't done so badly.
 
Other things in bloom in my yard on the first day of August are my rose of Sharon,

some zinnias,

 
 
phlox 'David,'
 
 
Texas mallow,
 
some lingering blooms on the butterfly weed (along with the interesting seed pods from earlier blooms),
 
 
sedum 'Autumn Joy,'
 
 daylily 'Final Touch,'
 
 a pot of begonias that I rooted from cuttings,
 
 and the ultimate sign of the advancing season, goldenrod.
 
As you turn the pages of life's calendar, make sure to stop and smell the flowers.
 
 

 

 
 



 

2 comments:

  1. You have posted some pretty color and interesting flowers. I think day lily is such a pretty flower, and I think is a volunteer. We have them pop up along the edge of the motor home port. I refuse to mow them because I admire their audacity to show up on their own.

    I am not a gardener nor grounds keeper, and I mow what is there. I like green and most of our yards have been partially clover (I like it) and different grass and weeds.
    Pretty entry. I like the simple looking tripod also.

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  2. Glad the tripod is getting some use!!! Far better then living its life in a drawer! Love the pictures...

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