Tag Archives: Blooming

1357. Late February, and the air’s so balmy snowdrops and crocuses might be fooled into early blooming. ~Gail Mazur

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It’s only approaching mid-February rather than late February hereabouts, and there are no crocuses yet nor snowdrops blooming for us, but it is balmy enough for the quinces, daffodils, and saucer magnolias to have been fooled into blooming.

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oft treacherous is
winter when it proffers not
cold nor snow nor ice

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But instead betrays
the garden with lies that spring
has indeed arrived

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So that daffodils
and quince and magnolias
flower too early

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Leaving them in great
peril from a forth coming
late wintry, hard freeze

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So who’s to say that
‘tis the month of love when
deceitfulness lurks

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But as for the Lord: … but I(God) will not take my love from him, not will I ever betray my faithfulness to him. I will not violate my covenant or alter why my lips have uttered. ~Psalm 89:33-34 ✝

**All photos taken by Natalie except for the first one. I found it on Pinterest today.

 

1169. It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

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In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.
My garden of flowers is also my garden
of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts
grow as freely as the flowers,
and 
the dreams are as beautiful.
~Abram L. Urban

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(Upper left is view out of other half of patio doors; upper right is another shot straight into the green house from my chair. Lower left is the swing house to right of the greenhouse and behind it is the giant oak and the storage shed; lower right is the rose arch over the small porch outside of Natalieworld)

After a recent post where I showed part of my garden and some of the flowers that are blooming now, I received many lovely comments. So I decided to post one more glimpse of my yard and what’s currently blooming. The Texas Heat Beast has definitely arrived, and since he’s stoking up summer’s fiery heat, lots of what I have blooming now will soon be gone. A measure of things will revive in the fall, but there is much more that sadly won’t be back again until next year. Only the hardiest make it through summer’s inferno in Texas, and what I always miss most as we endure the torrid, feverish trek through July and August and September is an unrivaled allure of the ethereal and delicate nature of flowers that beautiful spring proffers.

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(Upper left is more of the allium that’s beginning to bloom; upper right is a double daylily; lower left is a lily; lower right is that same lily before it popped open.)

A garden is always a series
of losses set against a few
triumphs, like life itself.
~May Sarton

[ She ] My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies. ~Song of Songs 8:13  ✝

**All images taken by me in and of my yard.

518. It is necessary to find the infinitely large in the infinitely small, to feel the presence of God. ~Pythagoras

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Winter is an etching,
spring a watercolor,
summer an oil painting,
and autumn a mosaic of them all.
-Stanley Horowitz

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Before one season passes into another, some of what has been comes along with the new blessings and before long the coming one begins easing its gifts into place. For example ripening rose hips are a part of winter’s etching, roses are a continuing bestowal of springtime’s watercolor epic, the now sighing-in-the-wind ornamental grasses appeared on summer’s brush-stroked canvas, and little purple asters aswarm with bees are securing their place in autumn’s developing mosaic, a mosaic not too different from the section of a pieced quilt like the one in the photo.

…the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.
~Marge Piercy

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ~Ephesians 1:3   ✝

** Image is a piece of a Barbara Olson quilt pinned on Pinterest

441. Bees do have smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers. ~Ray Bradbury

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The first week of August
hangs at the top of summer,
the top of the live-long year,
like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel
when it pauses turning.
The weeks that come before
are only a climb from balmy spring,
and those that follow 
a drop to the chill of autumn,
but August is motionless and hot.
~Natalie Babbit

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Months have passed since the jasmine climbed, the wisteria dangled, the snapdragons snapped, the poppies popped, and the birds obeyed spring’s pressing summons to build nests and procreate. Then after the summer solstice came and summer’s fires were stoked, the feverfew grew feverish, the pink loose-strife broke loose, the inland sea oats set sail on an ocean of green along the fence, and Columbine’s dove-like clusters turned brown, split open and spilled their bits of black seed bounty upon the ground. And whilst all this blooming was going on, the divine music of life that reached glorious crescendos in April grew more mellow in May, perkily sassy in June, and feverishly sultry in July. Two days hence from now, it would normally fall into a low, oppressed hum as August opens the doors to the boiler room, but strangely enough we are and will be for the next week experiencing some cooler than usual days. Though curious about the reason for such a blessing, I’ve learned never “to look a gift horse in the mouth.” The bees busily gathering nectar may grumble somewhat at this interloping gardener who sometimes stays too long in their domain or who moves to close in proximity to their pollen-rich environments such as the Texas Star Hibiscus in the photo, but grumble I shall not because normally this time of year we’re looking at the possibility of a record setting number of triple-digit-high days, days way, way too hot to enjoy even briefly being outside.

I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat. ~Hosea 13:5   ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

393. For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom. ~William Shakespeare

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Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine,
golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers,
lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds…
The nectar collected by the bee is
the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice.
Honey is the flower transmuted,
its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste.
~Stephanie Rosenbaum

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O little bee a buzzing at your task,
is it lavender that speaks your name,
or do the coneflowers and rudbeckia,
tempt your hunger even more.
What about the roses and the jasmine
or French Hollyhock and foxglove?
Or might it be those flashy daylilies and
Spirea that recently bloomed in pink?
Grand indeed are the garden’s gifts,
And you appear to love them one and all
for everywhere that I have been
I’ve found you working there as well.
Whilst I busy myself with garden chores
I do keep a watchful eye on you
for I’d love to find your hive one day
and taste your nectar honey’s sweet.
~Natalie Scarberry

Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

253. Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight. ~John Ruskin

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I’m a native of Europe and Siberia.
My name comes from the Greek word meaning “Dolphin.”
My dried flowers were used to dress wounds at the Battle of Waterloo.
European settlers made ink from my dried flowers.
I was used by West Coast Native Americans to make blue dye.
I’ve been said to represent the tears of the Virgin Mary.
Who am I? My name is Delphinium.
I can be blue and I’m beautiful.

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Blue is a popular color in the garden perhaps because it is relatively rare one in the plant world.   In fact, blue is said to be the most rare of colors amongst flowers.  Thus I am blessed to live in a place whose state flower is blue and whose landscape in places becomes covered in seas of bluebonnets for several weeks every spring.  Also, though Delphinium is not a staple in our landscape, they appear in pots in the nurseries this time of year before much, if anything, is blooming outside.  So I can, like I did last week, buy some to brighten the drab days of winter.  Both of the ones I got this year were marked as blue, but now that the second one is opening, I see that it’s going to be purple.  But hey, who am I to complain since purple is another of my favorite colors, and it too is often hard to come by in the garden.  Regardless of the color, now that I know that at one time delphiniums represented Mary’s tears, I’ll have yet another way of remembering what my salvation cost Mary and her precious son, the Christ.

May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.  ~Psalm 126:5  ✝