I’ve always been impressed at how beautifully dahlias grow in Washington. This one had a souvenir of a recent rain shower.
Category: Flowers
Theme Day: Celebrating summer
Meeting the City Daily Photo theme challenge this month was a no-brainer. In Sequim for many people “celebrating summer” is all about lavender. Sequim is one of the largest lavender-growing regions in North America. In mid-July our city and local growers host the Sequim Lavender Weekend, revolving around all things lavender. So if you want to celebrate summer with us, think purple!
To see how other bloggers have risen to the “celebrating summer” challenge, click here.
Wild rose
The local native Nootka roses (rosa nutkana) are in bloom. Unlike their fancy domestic cousins, they grow like weeds in hedges that can get up to eight feet high and fill broad expanses. Sun or partial shade, wet or dry areas, they aren’t too fussy about where they grow. Landscapes where they grow now are polka dotted with these wonderfully fragrant pink blossoms that bud, bloom, and fade within days.
When the light is just so, like the branches when flush with new growth, the thorns have a reddish hue.
Time for roses
I’m a sucker for roses and my favorites have these colored edges. That’s called a “picotee.” The only problem with this one was that I couldn’t get close enough to stick my nose in it. I’m also a sucker for the scent of a fragrant rose.
Memorial Day
World War I was the “war to end all wars.” Millions died. “In Flanders Field,” written by John McCrae, memorialized the carnage. Poppies have since been used on Memorial Day as a tribute to war dead.
In Flanders Field
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
–John McCrae
Full tilt spring
Washington has much shorter growing seasons than I was accustomed to when I lived in California. Once spring gets going here it unleashes growth that at times seems riotous, wild, unstoppable. The native honeysuckle is a case in point.
It seems like plants go from tender, tentative vines to bushes filled with a fireworks of blossoms in days.
Hummingbirds love these flowers; I was buzz bombed by one a year or two ago as I moved in on a flower. The only thing they lack is that heady fragrance that cultivated blossoms have. But the wild roses that are starting to bloom now have that nicely covered.
A short brag
It’s apple blossom time and I rather immodestly think our tree looks beautiful.