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Tag Archives: summer flowers

what blooms this week

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by home, garden, life in Charlottesville, Garden Lessons, summer, sustainable lifestyle, Virginia

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Charlottesville, garden, home, life, summer flowers, summer harvest, Virginia

Despite challenging August temperatures and humidity here in central Virginia, these beauties are awash with blooms and deliver a lovely scent. Enjoy!

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This is the second year for these hostas. They were shared by a garden friend who has spectacular specimens in her town landscape.

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Hosta close up. Pudgy bumblebees straddle these blooms while gathering nectar at the base of each flower, providing food for them and daily entertainment for moi.

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Hostas and clematis create a WOW! factor in an otherwise quiet August landscape.

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Second year for this clematis. It appears to like this thirty-foot long split rail fence. Although it was recently attacked by hordes of Blister Beetles, I managed to send these chewers to the “swim to eternity pool” (AKA bucket of soapy water) where they will reproduce no more.

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Twice-blooming Huldine clematis will soon cover the cattle panel arbor above one raised bed. Pretty, yes?

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Gifted hostas live well here at Swallowtail Cottage and stems sway at 48″ tall. WOWZA!

Formosa lily from Tufton

And I cannot omit the Formosa lily here at Swallowtail Cottage…the seed came from Tufton, a property once owned by Thomas Jefferson. The fall pods below make a splendid winter show…the seeds are stacked like plates within these shimmering jackets.

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Formosa lily self sows, is easily established and becomes a perennial. Care for seeds?

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Lastly, I must show off my Sakata (a Japanese seed company) Lilliput melons. This year proved to be a banner year, despite fungal issues on the leaves.  These personal-sized melons take their time, yet I eat half of one per day now and smile with every juicy bite. I will spare you the image of the silly looking chicken wire circled melon patch. Hopefully I will harvest melons up to frost. Thanks to P. Allen Smith for the trip and the seeds. www.pallensmith.com

As a steamy Virginia summer wanes, this was a decent growing season, despite my weekly grumbling whenever I headed out to mow turf, or pulled relentless weeds, or captured those Blister Beetles and Red Velvet Ants (AKA cow killer, ouch!).

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Charlottesville, yes Charlottesville, Virginia, USA is my town, population 150 thousand (town and county), and both she and her residents are resilient, despite recent controversy, hostility, loss of life, and world-wide news coverage. Fortunately, I find sanctuary here at Swallowtail Cottage, merely eight miles from town.

Which reminds me:
The enduring wonders of nature assure me that peace is found when I take notice. Many years ago I coined a phrase:

there is a fine line between order and chaos.

May you all be safe in the world, walk that fine line, and take notice of beauty while feeling her embrace.

Copyright © 2017 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

 

faces in the garden

08 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by home, garden, life in garden, home, life, Lifestyle, Poetry, summer, sustainable lifestyle

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

beauty, nature, photography, plants, poetry, summer flowers, Virginia

The following images resound from the gardens surrounding my home despite  horrendous heat and humidity…

Queen Ann, Queen Ann has washed her lace

she chose a summer’s day and laid it in a grassy place

to whiten if it may.

Queen Ann, Queen Ann

has left it there and slept all through the night

to wake to find the sunshine fair and all the meadows white.

Queen Ann, Queen Ann

is dead and gone, she died a summer’s day

yet left her lace to whiten on, each weed and tangled way.

Author Unknown

(I memorized this poem as a child)

Copyright © 2012 By Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

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Essay Titles

  • During my absence…
  • What a summer ~ what a year!
  • Soon to be summer cooler
  • Another blueberry spring
  • Spring garden projects
  • Chocolate Ginger Molasses wafers
  • Winter warmer when we pause
  • The twilight zone is real
  • Projects keep coming…
  • Feeling it
  • the journey continues
  • My food journey
  • Brownies, Keto Style
  • Keto almond crackers
  • If you are climbing the walls…
  • Three hours of sun
  • “this too shall pass”
  • there is no place like home…
  • the perfect Tiny House
  • Miracles everywhere
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  • An Artist’s Way
  • Sunday’s monster project
  • Meanwhile
  • how fragile we are
  • what I learned about Keto
  • small steps
  • do no harm…
  • will this convince you?
  • Plastics…a soapbox tale
  • Let’s clean up our act
  • 2020…are we ready?
  • All I want for Christmas
  • Thanksgiving…remembering love
  • At last
  • Keto “potatoes”
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  • for the love of rock, II
  • give a gardener a cool summer day…
  • Oh July, July
  • Kale, the ultimate chip
  • gone Keto
  • she’s baaaack!
  • Perhaps missed
  • for the love of rock
  • the anatomy of a popover
  • the garden visitor

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