The last rose of summer, really

I bought the rose bush at a grocery store one spring, perhaps seven or eight years ago. I planted it and then it bloomed once, also in a far away October. Perhaps this new bloom is a good sign. The colors of pale rich yellow and palest pink are gorgeous; the scent, a bit like lemon pie and a bit like lemon air freshener, is also very good. Happy autumn.

How evolution really works

A cardinal, a lily, the sky -- July

I'm reminded of the Peter Pan song "I won't grow up," in which the eternal child laments that adults still wear "a serious expression -- in the middle of July!"

He has a point. This is July.

Pink and green ...

... and morning ...

... and evening. The star of these photos is my Queen of the Prairie plant, the tall pink frothy thing, which is the pride and joy of my Pathetic Little Garden. It has had a rough time this year, having been nearly choked by another plant which I hoped would be pretty, but which I finally uprooted because it was ruining the Queen.

A hummingbird actually hollered at me the other day. Granted, his red feeder full of sugar water was in need of refreshment, but I think it wasn't that stale. Anyway, while I sat relaxing on the porch, I heard an odd little chip-chirp in the air beside me. I looked, and not three feet away hovered a hummingbird, swinging back and forth, looking rather stern and chip-chipping at me as if I were not quite bright. So I heaved a sigh, got up, went in the house, dutifully mixed his one part sugar and four parts water, stirred and stirred, brought the pitcher out to the yard, took down his feeder, emptied it, rinsed it out, and filled it carefully and hung it on the shepherd's hook again. Then I trudged back into the house and fetched a cup of clean water, which I took out to the yard and then, just as carefully, emptied over the outside of the feeder, rinsing off any excess sugar water which might attract ants.

Then I went back to the porch and sat down again. I saw no more of the hummingbird that evening so I assume he ate, was satisfied, and went home to bed. "Ah, we are all martyrs to our servants," Lucia sighs in Mapp and Lucia. It's another thing entirely, however, to be a martyr to a hummingbird.  
 

Summer garden

More in the garden

And -- of course, this is wildly off topic, but have you noticed? -- how much conservative pundits (mostly men) dislike Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann? I almost think that, having spent their careers commenting on and observing politics, and growing gray and weak-eyed in the process, they really resent their thunder and their punditry and their relevance being stolen by moms with long brown hair.

"Bachmann panders to conservative intellectuals," Commentary

"One if by land, two if by sea, three if by Palin," Commentary

To be fair, both these columns above were written by the same man (yay for fact-checking!), but I have a vague sense that my point holds. Maybe that's why I'm not a pundit, and am also a mom with long-ish brown hair. .

Flowers

At long last, blue

At long last, a sky blue morning glory, after years of the purple kind.

Mr. Wasp says "hello."

This bug probably eats things it shouldn't, but it is very pretty.

A mell of a hess

Ah yes, the August garden of a May and June gardener; worse, the late August garden of a May and June gardener. I am one of those people who looks forward eagerly to every tiny sprig of green in March and April, delights in the first woodland and garden perennials of May, enjoys June while tut-tutting at the vanished colors already, and then gets kind of bored by mid-July. I also have a ridiculous habit, extremely amateurish, of not weeding very much. Have you ever read garden blogs whose authors peek over their amateur neighbors' fences, look at something gone wild, and ask, "why would you let anything get like that?"

I'm the neighbor. I hate to pull up a green growing thing, even if it is smothering other things I wanted and paid money for. I reason that if the thing can grow there, it must belong there. It's found its niche. My sister in law, the master gardener, says, if "it" -- whatever you are looking at in puzzlement -- reaches waist height and you're not getting anything from it (no flowers), get rid of it. Sensible advice, which I vow I'll follow next year. Just as, every year in about April, I vow to myself: a better garden this year. I've got plenty of time.

But here we are at the end of August. Someone really ought to see to these castor bean plants, being twined about by morning glory. But at least morning glories flower -- I get something from them, reliably.   

And one really ought not to let one's coleus flower. The plant would have been fuller without it. I didn't even realize it was happening.

Perennial red fountain grass, Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Red Head #1.' This may be exactly what I need: the permanently unmowable, no-fuss lawn. 

Of all things, the philodendron, future houseplant and in fact my favorite kind of houseplant (so wild looking!) looks promising.

In the background below are gigantic goldenrod, from my sister-in-law's own garden as it happens, which seem not to be getting enough sun. How they stoop and strain for more! But if and when they flower, they'll be beautiful massed yellow. And native, too.

I never can understand why woods and meadows always look good, while letting one's garden run riot never seems to replicate nature's effortless beauty. Perhaps this entire hobby is just not my forte. Perhaps at the very least I've never fully realized that my yard lies in almost perpetual shade, and that this has an effect on what will thrive.

It's a good thing the internet is full of gardens we may virtually visit, gardens whose masters don't make such a hash of it. Do go and see, just for a start:

India Garden (spectacular butterflies)
The Green Garden Gate (from Denmark; flowers are the same in any language)
Garden History Girl
Dragon Fly Garden (from Miami)
Japanese Garden

And doff your garden hat in the profoundest admiration.