SUNNY SUMMERY SHOTS -AND THEN SOME

I have not posted for almost three weeks, and the pictures are piling up – flower portraits, garden rooms, snapshots… How to order them into a narrative? Let’s see:

I will start at the end. This morning we woke to mountain weather. Cool, misty, lazy frog-sounds droning away endlessly. Love it! The whole week promises to be like this, so I am pleased yesterday ended with an extensive walk and photo-shoot, and then some sunset snapshots. (See how our valley has greened up since last I posted; spring to me is more beautiful after mid-October.)

More green, and more flowers; more noticeable because I’ve been away from Sequoia for ten days in two sessions during this time. The Dierama (Hairbells, Wandflowers or Angels’ Rods), are in full flower. Many years ago I was given a beautiful and very unusual pure white form by a friend. Several years later we harvested seed from a mixed planting, including the more common lilacy pink one – all I believe forms of Dierama medium, although the more I study Hilliard & Burtt’s monograph on the Diarama, the more confused I become, and the less certain they seem. Also the pure white flowers indicate that it might be D. pulcherrimum, one of the few species with a white form recorded. I find little information on interbreeding, and I’m not certain how endemic my stock in fact is to our area, which complicates matters further. Be it as it may, my resultant seedlings vary from pure white through the softest of pinks to strong pinks and lilacs.

Coreopsis and ox-eye daisies form the matrix of a profusion of flowers. And even the lawn is now green.

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The scent of nicotiana fills the air, especially at dusk.

The late azaleas are in full flower now – some can be seen in the background of the above photos, and the deciduous azaleas in the wilder parts of the garden are as beautifully scented as any nicotiana.

Flowers everywhere… but more later.