June 1 - June 5 Colors

 

2010-This essay will just be a list of all the flowers that are blooming right now, this paradisiacal abundance the very essence of late spring.  In the front garden there is a lily, the false indigo just finishing and the evening primrose just starting, the pelargonium and the budding astilbe.  They are all in the category of local perennials if not natives. Then there are the visitors or annuals just brought in; pansies and a pot of purple petunias, somewhat the worse for wear after falling out of their hanger, but recovering.
In front of the fence there are the pink climbing roses, foxgloves and cosmos. On the houseplant bench are two pots of stock and a lime tree in bloom. All around the yard are the wild roses already mentioned and in the yard blue and yellow flag irises, white and pink peonies, more geraniums, chives, wild lupine, the first daylily, comfrey, the tail end of the bleeding hearts and wisteria, the aggressively spreading angelica, and the two shades of yellow Siberian irises.  In the hidden bed there is a riot of sweet William in many shades and combinations, but only one fragrant orange wallflower came back this year. 
In the garden the bok choy, broccoli rabe and arugula have, to my consternation, all flowered out. The peppers from the garden store have flowers, one has even set a little fruit.
In a nursery box waiting to be planted are heliotrope, more pansies, marigolds, a blood red shade of dianthus and white and red nicotiana. And an eggplant with a bud already formed.
Then there are the ‘weeds’; buttercup, mustard, orange hawkweed, blue flowered chickweed and a last stray dandelion.
PS
And what I didn’t think of yesterday; double begonias, clematis, honeysuckle, wild yarrow. Dutch iris, white and red clover, three kinds of spiderwort, and, yes, all the grasses nodding their heavy, grainy heads.
2011- Down in the forties last night and more predicted for tonight though the days are very pleasant high sixties-this after four days in the nineties and the list of flowers is very different.  The lily in the front garden did not even have an evident bud, the indigo is just beginning.  The wild roses and geraniums are just beginning, the pink rose has a few buds though it did very badly this winter and had to be pruned way back. The peonies, daylilies and lupine are still in bud though all the irises are at peak. The sweet William is just beginning and the wallflower came back.  While mowing I saw just one white clover flower. So even in the repetition of the cycling seasons there is the uniqueness of each individual; never to be repeated in exactly the same way.
2012-The fifth mouse in the trap the other day, and then, mysteriously the body of a newborn baby mouse just lying in the doorway to the back room. I could not imagine how it got there (many scenarios-non plausible) until I went into that closet and found a nest built partly upon the hem of one of my dresses long enough to trail on the floor. In it were three more babies-all dead. So the mother being killed, the babies starved and the one on the floor pathetically venturing out (to find her?) before meeting that fate. This is our world. I would not want a nest of mice in my closet, but…
Against the list of flowers of the past two years this year is very different. Much has bloomed already and as things come out they are turned to mush by extremes of cold, hot or wet. The wild roses, irises, peonies, clematis, wild honeysuckle-all over.  There is much heavy greenery because of the moisture; the effect on me is oppressive. The pink roses are beautiful though and twining all through the fence as I’d hoped. The Sweet William, daylilies just starting, the indigo, the geraniums-all kind of unenthusiastic.
2013- Yesterday in the garden I found a hummingbird who had got his beak inpaled in the screen part of the fence. I guess he had not been there for long because I was able to ease his beak out of the mesh and he flew off. I keep thinking about a video I saw about cicadas (Samuel Orr's beautiful work) that showed how out of the millions that hatch, only a certain amount make it through the whole  hatching, tree-climbing, molting, mating egg-laying, hatching, falling out of the tree, digging underground cycle. Most either get eaten or fail to accomplish some step of the process. The huge numbers are to insure success for the species as a whole, but the individuals seem to be just grist for the mill.