Twilight Bloomers

No, I’m not referring to old ladies’ underpants. I’m talking about the flowers I admire around the garden that appear more dramatic as the light fades. Usually this is most apparent on gray days, moody days, and we’ve had our fill of these. But they call attention to the sharp colors of some flowers contrasted with the softening tones of others, making a symphony for me, singing their songs to me.
As autumn is now in full swing after another very wet and cold season of more than a year of this kind of weather, our number of blooms has lessened considerably from what we usually enjoy this time of year. I hardly have any roses open now and the few that are in flower are bland in comparison to past years. So, I’ve been filling pots that I put high on rustic tables, out of the chickens’ usual reach, of different floral varieties to boost the impact of all these various greens that surround us in every direction. Most of these were planted in summer and have done their dash for God and country and crazy plant lady. Now they are retreating, dying back…some with a bit more flair than others, some just disappearing into nothingness.
Seeing all these wondrous bits of nature wakes me from my doldrums about my own life, for I find most of my inspiration in the natural world that we have here in our gardens and our animals. I complain about the work it entails to try to keep up with such a large garden space to watch over…but in the end, even when it gets away from us and there are messes to pick up or control here and there, this particular garden keeps us in step with our lives. Working in our little plots and bigger projects as we do, transforms our day-to-day existence from the mundane to the sublime whether we’re in muddy gumboots or have hay hanging from our clothes. Progress lately has come slowly to us since there have been many stops and restarts after multiple rainy days interfered with our workloads. But when it does arrive and we’ve somehow persevered to the finish line, all the effort we put in is truly gratifying. Somehow, we feel a sense of the divine here with the results from our efforts to make something out of nothing or embellish a plain space into something different. John certainly has a gift to reconfigure areas in our landscape; a talent he’s demonstrated over and over at all of our properties. This one’s no different except that it’s us beautifying someone else’s property. But we’re the ones enjoying it by living here and having this palette to fill with our dreams coming to fruition.  Lucky us.