Pbenjay's Blog

Liriope spicata (creeping lilyturf) A young variegated Liriope. Taken by Elf (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why don’t we hear it?  We should know by now that when you hear the bands playing on the Fourth of July and the fireworks light up the night sky, that we are now on the downward slide towards Fall.  Fourth of July is like Wednesday is Hump Day.  Don’t you love the new Geico commercial?  It’s ok but I do love the Gecko best of all.

It’s one of the last Saturdays in August and a cool breeze is wafting through the front door and out the back door. Sometimes it’s good to have a small cottage.  It’s late morning and I can see by the slant of the sun shining in the window that this is NOT mid-summer anymore.  This is NOT the sticky hot humid heat we had in July.  This feels more like a September morning.  I remember this angle of sun so well – it reminds of playing tennis with friends after the kids had gone back to school.  The sun was warm in our arms but the breeze was there and you never sweated playing then.

When I went outside to retrieve the New York Times I noticed that the Liriope was blooming.  Slender stalks had shot up and were topped with tight little clusters of purple flora.  I felt a pang.  When spring arrives, that glorious time of year when we are rewarded for having endured yet another gray winter, we are treated to purple crocuses, purple grape hyacinths.  The sight of those little purple flowers can make your whole day, maybe even your whole week.  Why? Well we know then that spring has sprung and summer is on its way!  But when you see the purple lirope you know that summer is over; They are the last to bloom in my front yard.  

The forsythia came and went as did the daffodils, day lilies and astilbe and azalea plants.  I had a couple of beautiful peonies, my roses are still blooming and the hydrangeas were simple gorgeous this year.  The butterfly bush is bigger than ever and I thought for sure I had killed it when I hacked it down last fall.  The geraniums I bought on Memorial Day barely bloomed all summer but this week they are in full bloom.  This has been a very colorful spring and summer and I imagine autumn will soon bring its own palette.  When the gray days of January and February are upon us, I hope to remember the vivid colors of this summer; Not just my flowers, we’ve had blazing sunsets, a shore filled with a color wheel of beach umbrellas and this summer, toe nails in shades of blue, green, yellow and hot pink!