#autumn flowers
Autumn mums
It was the firsd day of October, and instead of the fine, dry spell which Algy expected in the west Highlands of Scotland at this time of year, the weather was increasingly stormy, with wild winds, torrential rain, and the occasional thunderstorm bringing battering showers of icy water and hailstones.
But in between the squalls there were occasional periods of calm, and Algy took advantage of one such respite to check on his assistants’ hydrangeas, which grew in a relatively sheltered spot. Algy loved the hydrangeas, for one variety produced the clearest powder blue, and the other had fascinating flower heads with deep, dense blue centres that attracted the bees when the weather was kinder, surrounded by lovely mauve bracts (or were they petals?) around the outsides.
It was a wee bit late in the season now, and the hydrangeas were obviously past their best, but Algy was very glad that he had not missed them entirely. Shivering slightly as he perched in the damp bush, Algy studied the flowers and reflected on the changing of the seasons. He was reminded of an odd wee poem by one of his favourite American poets, although his mood was by no means as sombre as that of Mr. Sandburg… and nor were Algy’s hydrangeas white, so they therefore faded rather more gracefully, the colour simply leaching out of them as the season advanced:
Dragoons, I tell you the white hydrangeas turn rust and go soon.
Already mid September a line of brown runs over them.
One sunset after another tracks the faces, the petals.
Waiting, they look over the fence for what way they go.
Algy wishes you all a safe and happy weekend, and hopes that you will be able to find some flowers to brighten your days, wherever you happen to live
[Algy is quoting the poem Hydrangeas by the 20th century American poet Carl Sandburg.]
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Fall prelude !
These late summer, early fall flowering gems are Colchicum Rosy Dawn and speciosum with a few of the bright, daffodil yellow Sternbergia lutea.
Flowering in mid-September ~ Catharpin, Virginia
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