Category Archives: Flowers

A minor re-blooming at the tail end of the season is always a welcome sight, particularly when one manages to capture it in the almost-golden hour. Sunlight slanting through the petals of a clematis bloom illuminates things differently depending on which side it’s on. When viewed head-on, with the sunlight falling directly on it, the petals feel warmer, the veining richer; when viewed from behind, the blue of the sky as its backdrop, it feels decidedly cooler, and more crisp. 

The shift from summer to fall, in spite of all atmospheric evidence to the contrary, has begun. One wouldn’t know it from the 90-degree days that are in full-effect, but it’s happening. These last few summer days will find me hiding from the sun and heat; I wrote this summer off a while ago. I will try to embrace them, and inhabit them as they come. I will try to be present, to experience what remains of this season and not wish or rush it away. I will also eagerly anticipate the fall, and even the winter; it is time for the gardens to go to sleep for another year. 

Part of me has been wishing August away as quickly as possible. 

You might too if you’d had the August I’ve had.

Part of me wishes there was more than this last week left. 

For all the awfulness that this particular August has provided, there has also been beauty – a beauty and tumultuous abandon that have acted as a balm upon the bruised heart. For every ravaging storm, there was a sunny day of respite that followed, for every bit of disenchantment, a revelation of hidden magic. Summer carries its own reserve of illusory coping mechanisms. Mounted insecurely on the whims of some fluffy seed-head, it scatters its hope for the future on the crest of the wind, riding the air like some salty sea wave. 

Last night, the rains moved back in, and it felt like a stormy fall night. We had a quiet dinner with Mom, and we took a moment to take in the fact that this was my first birthday without Dad. The beginning of a year of such firsts, and it felt a little daunting. We got through it together, and as we shared some birthday dessert back at Mom’s new home, it felt warm and cozy, like Dad was still protecting and guiding us.

That’s what will see us through the next year of firsts. 

Most of the blog posts you read here are pre-written and pre-scheduled, days and sometimes weeks in advance. It’s the only way to keep up a regular and consistent schedule with a full-time job. On this Sunday morning, however, I have nothing scheduled, nothing written, and nothing strongly impelling me to do so. In the place of such regularly-scheduled history, I write this off the cuff, on a beautiful morning where the sun has revealed the first morning glory blooms of the season. 

Morning glories have come to signify the end of summer for me, which is a shift from their original meaning. In my younger years they meant early morning days when the sun would cajole them into opening before I even made it out of the house. Those were the big, sky-blue beauties of my youth – the old-fashioned morning glory variety that would wind its way through the chainlink fence that the neighbor had up, laced with metallic white privacy strips – the kind that made such a racket if a ball or child managed to run into it. 

Only when I got older did I realize how much later in the season the morning glories would start their show, especially these smaller, if more vibrant, shades. Now, they signal the imminent arrival of fall, the point where the ferns have browned beyond any hope of returning to their early chartreuse beauty, and where the blooms of any roses have long since turned to hips. 

The turn feels different this year, somehow sadder and somehow more welcome. The light glows differently at this time too – richer, more resonant – as if it knows these are the last days of the summer, as if it feels it slipping away and holds it closer. 

The birds and the bees have been keeping our cup plants company this summer, as is tradition. Goldfinches have been regularly visiting and fluttering about the flowers, waiting anxiously for the first sign of developing seeds. No matter how much they take, there is always enough left for volunteers to sprout up throughout the yard. Despite the worst aphid infestation we’ve ever had, the plants still managed to flower; nature’s resiliency is a model for survival. 

The finches visit throughout the day – the brightest ones matching the golden flowers, and flying away as if absconding with some of the prettiness – flashes of sunlit yellow streaking across the sky. 

The bees, meanwhile, languidly bop from flower to flower, their backs and bottoms dusted with pollen, setting the stage for the seeds to come and doing their part in the cycle of summer. 

And so the somewhat-sunny season carries on, in the flight and fluttering of the birds and the bees, and in the beauty of the flowers and the sky. 

A bit of a breather post before things get too dense around here. Just a few flower pics post rain-storms.

Tomorrow I’ll break out a bussy post, so come back for that to kick off your weekend right.

For now, just some tantalizing pink blossoms doused with wetness – because the plant kingdom is sexier than anything the human body will ever produce, no matter how naked we get. 

Fresh off this simple post comes another quick hit to loosen things up. It was getting entirely too dense with the detailed and privileged post of whining from this morning, so here is a view of our lace-cap hydrangea, enjoying a banner year in the garden. Happy Friday!

Lace has come to embody many different meanings, conveying myriad effects: innocence and sex, delicacy and depravity, virgin and whore, or saintly and dirty. It runs the gamut from undergarments to flowers to insects to frills. It lends elegance to some and vulgarity to others. In this lace-cap hydrangea, its effects are equally outrageous, defying words to the point that I’ll stop writing to let the photos and the looks speak for themselves.

How strange it should be that my major doses of roses this summer have come not from my own garden, or some countryside stand or greenhouse, but rather from a few bushes in downtown Albany which have been blooming their heads off for the past week or so. Such a sight has given life to my lunchtime strolls, and is a reminder that flowers can offer emotional sustenance in the deepest and darkest of downtown corners. 

My relationship with the rose is as basic as anyone else’s, and though we don’t bother with growing them anymore (Andy and I gave up because we don’t have any extra space, or the additional effort the successful cultivation demands) we still love them. In fact, a bouquet of them stands in our den at the moment because I pick them up for Andy from time to time as I know how much he adores them. They remind him of his mother, and so they carry a sentiment that is worth keeping. 

These roses are located in a little corner garden right on Broadway in downtown Albany, where they provide a happy sight to office workers out on lunch or a break – should they choose to stop and smell them. 

The formal peony beds at Suzie’s childhood home – a stately Victorian in black and white perched upon Locust Avenue – were usually my first brush with summer as we celebrated her birthday in early June every year. While the other party attendees focused on the games and silliness that kids are wont to love, I wandered off by myself to see the peonies, in full, resplendent bloom in the gardens away from the crowd. 

They towered up to my height, their heads heavy with petals and peony perfume yet still somehow standing, and their effect was magical. It was a brush with the sublime, one that I’ve held onto through these middle-age years, and one that has kept me company on the cold nights and desolate mornings of winter. They embodied beauty and hope and happiness, bursting with their brilliance and refusing to bow down to subtlety or other expected decorum. Part of me wanted to be just like them, and part of me cowered at their power. In their buds they held all the promise of something spectacular, something moving, something that would change my life. 

Another Itoh peony variety has entered its blooming period, slightly and blessedly behind this sibling to extend the season by a few days. My Mom saw this one in our yard and has wisely decided to put one in her new front garden; it’s a perfect choice for the splendid blooms and handsome foliage that stays fresh and mildew-free for the entire summer season. I’ll keep my eyes open – the Itoh peonies are usually available a little later in the season.

This yellow variety is a bit more fragrant than its predecessor, emitting a spicy tea-like perfume that is akin to this classic tree peony. The effect is exquisite, conjuring an experience that thrills on almost every sensory level. Though the blooming season may not last when compared to other perennials, they come at the most glorious time of the year, and provide such prettiness and perfume that they more than earn a spot of valuable garden real estate. Besides, the blooms are valued more when they are fleeting, and as they denote the freshest time of the seasonal year they will become part of the loveliest summer memories – that time when it was all just beginning, when all was hope and possibility and anticipation. The time before happiness is usually happiness itself.