Today I began attending massage school in Pensacola. The other students and their reasons for enrolling in the school are as varied as the markings on this Peruvian lily. This is the third year it has graced the flower bed on the south side of the lanai. It only blooms here for a few weeks, but its speckled presence makes an otherwise dull spot in the bed shine for a while.
Please, hold your applause. I just finished swimming, and I need my binkie! Micah, my other Peruvian lily, his parents, and Grandma Martha came over yesterday for a cookout and swim in our pool. I wish that my dad could have lived to meet Micah. He would have loved his expressive and precocious personality.
This gardenia, a groundcovering variety with variegated leaves, bathes the pool area with its divine scent when the sun warms its delicate blossoms.
These freckle-faced pansies apparently have an iron constitution despite their name. They have been ignored for months while I've been away but continue to bloom on the north side of the lanai.
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls, finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins--1844-1889
Your pansies are amazing, still blooming? Plant more of those! That is what we always say when one of the plants far exceeds expectations. The gardenias are wonderful and little Micah is a treasure.
ReplyDeleteFrances at Faire Garden
Frances, yes, they really are still blooming, though it's hard to believe. I planted them last fall before we left for Illinois, and they have pretty much been left alone. Maybe that's a good thing sometimes. Often the plants I pamper and coddle end up in the compost pile. Kind of like spoiled kids, I guess, they end up rotten. Grandkids are the exception, I think. :>)
ReplyDeleteHello, neighbor! Thanks for leaving a message on my blog It looks like your garden is doing well. Wish I had a place in Illinois to escape to when the heat kicks in.
ReplyDeleteI love the smell of gardenias, but it is one plant you can't grow here in Illinois. Well, at least not over the winter.
ReplyDeleteGood luck in massage school. If your grandson still lives in Florida, I can see why you wouldn't want to leave. You look like a proud grandma, as you should be!
Deborah, you are welcome and thanks for visiting here. Unfortunately, the part of Illinois (southern) I am from gets rather hot and humid in the summer too. At least here, we usually get a sea breeze in the afternoon that stirs the air around if nothing else.
ReplyDeleteHi, Rose. Yes, my grandson never ceases to amaze and delight me. I think being a grandma makes me feel young again. I love to get down on the floor and play with him, make silly noises, and generally act goofy just to see him laugh. You are right about the gardenias, not surviving the winter. I didn't think I would survive this last one. We had two big ice storms and a heap of snow, and the endless dreariness was so depressing. I'm hoping things work out so we don't have to spend winters there again!
ReplyDeletethanks for stopping by my blog. I have that same varigated gardenia. You are blooming, so Mine might in a month. Is it reliable, I just planted it!
ReplyDeleteHi, D.F. It's been a while since I visited, but you are welcome. Yes, the gardenia is very reliable. It seems to thrive on neglect, which is a good thing, since I've been gone for a while and time always seems to be in short supply around here now that I'm back. Please keep in touch.
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