Tag Archives: Inferno

1207. “Heat, ma’am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.” ~Sydney Smith

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The summer flower blooms and dies
because the sunny glow which brings it forth,
soon slays it with parching power.
~Edited line by Dante Alighieri

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As August draws near and the fiery, dog days, the hottest and most uncomfortable days of summer, begin to drag tediously on, time seems to slow down as if it were moving through sticky, thick molasses. And sweat oozes from the pores of one’s skin and drips down like the rain everybody’s wanting to fill the ever-widening cracks in the soil. The only daylight hours one can enjoy the garden are the early ones before the blazing rays of the sun burn or melt what beauty yet remains. Amazing as it is, ‘tis then that they, the flowering vines, bloom and climb higher and higher on wispy tendrils that cling to whatever they touch. So I can’t help but wonder as the morning glories, coral vines, hyacinth bean vines, and passionflowers grow up and up and up if they aren’t attempting to rise high enough to escape the inferno here below and reach the cooler, heavenly climes above. Besides the early hours, if one should survive the day, the night also proffers a climbing delight that ascends as if to draw closer to its mimicked paramour, the moon. And so it is that the pure white moonflower reigns as queen of the night’s shadowy darknesses.

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I(God) cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of the burning heat. ~Hosea 12:5 ✝

**Most images of flowering vines taken by me in my yard.

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.