Still Waters: Notes from a Virginia Shire

Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity.

                                        --Lao Tzu

As you can see from my note below, 
I had planned a short hiatus from daily blogging.
My intention was to begin again today, December 1st, 2014;
however, my special projects at work won't be finished until January, 2015.
So I will begin publishing the blog again then, every Wednesday and Sunday
instead of daily. In the meantime, enjoy the archives!

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

The Still Waters: Notes from a Virginia Shire blog

is on hiatus from Monday, September 1, 2014

through Monday, December 1, 2014.

The archives contain more than 900 blog posts,

so while I'm away, catch up on what you may have missed.

~

Please email me at stillwaters161@gmail.com

if there are problems with the archive.

See you in December!

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The Second Season

Here in the Shire, it's common to start planting in late August and September

for the second season of gardening.

Cool weather crops like spinach, lettuce, and other greens are common.

Lots of people plant ornamental kale and pansies in September.

The best part of planting pansies 

is that they will bloom from now right through late June.

This year, I have a plan that will bring those winter flowers  a little closer.

morguefile.com, uploaded by irish eyes

Because we live at sea level and near the river,

our heating and air conditioning units 

are elevated on a small deck of their own.

There's an unused space on the deck just outside the breakfast room window, 

and it always seemed like a good place to have some flowers.

Earlier this summer, I found a wrought iron stand

to hold a 24-inch planter outside the window.

So for the "second season," I plan to plant pansies there.

They should be beautiful.

And I'm looking forward to opening the window

and watering them from inside the house!

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Still Waters blog goes on hiatus beginning tomorrow,

Monday, September 1, 2014 through Monday, December 1, 2014.

With nearly 1,000 daily blog posts from the Shire available 

 in the archives, this will be a good time 

to catch up on what you might have missed.

(Please report any problems with the archives

to me at stillwaters161@gmail.com. Thanks!)

I'll check in from time to time between now and December. 

Till then . . .

Autumn Leaves

Even though it's not officially autumn for three more weeks,

a few leaves are already turning colors.

Here are three I found this morning while I was walking:

This scarlet leaf is beautiful:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

I love the orange ones even more

because orange seems like such a happy, exciting color:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

But the red and yellow ones are sublime,

even with a little wear and tear:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

Ready or not, autumn is on the horizon.

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Just one more post before the Still Waters blog goes on hiatus from

Monday, September 1, 2014 through Monday, December 1, 2014.

With nearly 1,000 daily blog posts from the Shire available 

 in the archives, this will be a good time 

to catch up on what you might have missed.

(Please report any problems with the archives

to me at stillwaters161@gmail.com. Thanks!)

<>

Vinca Jams and Jellies Blackberry

About this time of year,

I start to think about fall flowers.

Fall flowers here will grow and bloom up until November, generally.

So it seems like a good idea to plant some flowers 

that will look festive around Halloween.

Usually people buy orange marigolds and chrysanthemums in autumn colors .

And if they've planned ahead,

they will also have planted some of the dark purple-black sweet potato vine.

Image from growertalks: 

http://www.ballpublishing.com/growertalks/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=19422

But I was in the garden center recently 

and ran across a nearly black vinca, a dark purple color I'd never seen before,

called Jams and Jellies Blackberry.

That name is so delicious you could practically eat it.

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Scarlet Runner Beans

Decades ago, we lived in a small townhouse with no backyard. 

It did, however, have a concrete patio with fencing on three sides.

I decided I would plant flowers in the narrow dirt strips

where the fence's support posts were anchored.

I don't know why, 

but I never considered planting anything in a pot or planter.

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

So on one side I grew marigolds in the few inches of soil  available.

On the other, I planted scarlet runner beans.

Unfortunately, the runner beans I grew 

looked nothing like the lush, colorful vine pictured on the seed packet.

The foliage was straggly and pale, leggy at the bottom, weak at the top.

The only parts of the plant that were beautiful

were the tiny scarlet blossoms.

This image is a good facsimile:

photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jason-riedy/2787089684/">

Jason Riedy</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> 

<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>

I hadn't thought of that gardening adventure for years.

Only today because I ran across a photo of scarlet runner beans

in an article about the best flowers for late August/early September.

The photo showed an incredibly lush vine 

covered in a profusion of vermilion red blossoms.

My mom used to say, believe none of what you hear

and only half of what you see.

Good advice, particularly when looking at incredibly 

beautiful photos of scarlet runner beans.

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Vinca

Annual flowers are supposed to last only one season,

but I've found that many will re-seed.

That's what's happened with the vinca we planted last year.

But I didn't realize it had re-seeded until I noticed a bright green plant

growing up through a crack between the bricks in our front walk.

This week, it bloomed:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

At first glance, it didn't look particularly spectacular,

but up close it was flawless:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

And then I found another vinca volunteer, and yet another one.

They were easy to miss there among the impatiens, 

but on closer examination, so pristine and beautiful:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

To find that beautiful flowers have volunteered to grow in your garden

makes a lovely late summer surprise.

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Gladiolus, the Flower for August

Before the last sands of August slip through the hourglass,

I wanted to mention the symbolic flower for August.

It's the gladiolus.

The gladiolus is a long-stalked plant with large opened trumpet flowers

that sport a ruffled edge and  an assortment of vibrant colors.

They are beautiful and delicate, given to falling over when their blossoms are full--

kind of like a Victorian lady on a fainting couch.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gladiolus#mediaviewer/File:Purple_Gladioli.jpg

Image uploaded by: twdragon 2008

So to me, glads just don't seem like an appropriate choice for August.

They seem like more of a late May, early June kind of flower.

Gladioli are just too refined and frilly to symbolize 

the rough and tumble, the grit and sweat of hot August days.

By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters

 [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

August needs a flower that's bold. Something orange or golden yellow,

something that defies the heat of the season and the scorching summer sun.

Maybe a sunflower that grows straight and upright along fields awaiting harvest.

Or coneflowers, with their crew-cut seed heads 

and petals down around their prickly necks.

Perhaps even an Indian Blanket flower.

I've seen them co-mingling with sand burrs near the beach

and growing out of the burning hot sand along a Florida sidewalk.

Now that's a rugged flower.

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August 25th

Another cool, windy day today.

I have to remind myself this is August and not October.

It feels at least like late September.

Even so, it's too early for the colorful flowers of fall: 

asters, chrysanthemums, and goldenrod.

The flowers of summer appear less robust than they were,

with fewer blooms and more seed heads.

Right now, things are primarily green.

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

When I was walking this evening, 

I noticed the thorny greenbrier vine

 thick all along the edge of the wood.

And the pine needles are still green, as are the maple saplings,

leafy oaks, and the star-shaped gum tree leaves. 

Even the water in the ponds is collecting green moss.

One last dance in an emerald gown

before the autumn gala begins.

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Summer Wind

The summer wind came blowin' in from across the sea ...

                                                              --Johnny Mercer

This August in the Shire has been unusual 

in that there have been few days with temperatures in the 90s and 100s.

The milder temperatures have made it easier to take care of my flowers,

but it seems odd that we've had fewer "dog days" than normal.

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

And today, the wind has blown and blown.

Leaves and pine needles have been hastened from the trees

and scattered to the four corners.

Summer wind, bringing with it what may come.

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What the Trees Know

Even though it's still summer, 

there are signs that autumn is stirring.

It starts one leaf at a time

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

as the light grows softer.

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Robins in Late Summer

This morning there was a small commotion

in the tall Chindo viburnum shrubs.

This time of year they get beautiful red berries,

and apparently those berries attracted a few robins

who were feeding with a lot of unrestrained enthusiasm.

They left only a few:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

While the robins this morning indulged in a happy frenzy of eating,

 the ones I saw yesterday were more subdued--

so much so, I wondered what they were up to.

The entrance to our part of the neighborhood has a median full of crape myrtle trees.

Very shady, very pretty.

And it's the place where I've seen lurking vultures 

evenly spaced along the sidewalks on each side of the street.

Yesterday, a dozen robins were doing the same thing:

lined up, evenly spaced looking out into the street.

Must be something about the air currents there; 

on the other hand, they could know something we don't.

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Pachysandra

Pachysandra, commonly known as Japanese Spurge,

is a great ground cover for shady areas,

so we had planted it at our first little house in Virginia

and then again our current home here.

It's supposed to be an aggressive spreader,

but we had never seen that kind of behavior from it.

If anything, it's been a slow grower for us--painfully slow.

morguefile.com, image uploaded by krosseel

However, this summer, after a few years of it just sitting there,

it's started to show its true colors.

It's spreading, but from my perspective,

it's spreading in the wrong direction--right across my moss path, 

 not in the little bed I've cultivated for it.

I guess it's true what they say, be careful what you ask for.

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Picking Fruit

My dad once remarked that there was nothing better

than coming home from school, climbing an apple tree,

and eating a juicy apple from his perch in the branches.

It always seemed like a charming memory to me.

But today I think I found out why the simple act of picking fruit

was such a primal, spiritual experience for him.

Our little fig tree before it set fruit:

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

I've had a stressful few days, 

trying to get some things ready in time to meet an impending deadline.

But this evening I picked figs for a crostata I plan to make.

It was then I understood the profound attraction that plucking

one perfect apple had for my dad.

Inside the cloak of the fig tree, I felt the supple bending of the branches,

 the massive fig leaves brushing against me,

my fingers touching the soft fruit,

the fig's golden skins glistening with sticky sugar.

Arms reaching up as high as I could make them.

Seems like heaven to me.

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Arnica Montana

Today I saw a flower bed full of what I thought was calendula officinalis,

or pot marigold. But as I was looking for photos of it,

I realized the flowers I saw aren't actually calendula,

which looks like this:

by TeunSpaans. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Calendula_officinalis_03-09-2005_15.21.56.JPG#mediaviewer

I started hunting for what those yellow-orange flowers might be

and ran across references to arnica montana,

a little-known flowering herb that I've been familiar with

 and occasionally used as an ointment a couple of decades now.

According to Wikimedia Commons, arnica has many names: 

leopard's bane, wolf's bane, mountain tobacco, and my favorite:

Celtic nard (narde being an archaic term for ointment 

prepared from a plant rhizome).

I've never seen arnica growing anywhere, 

but this is what it looks like in bloom:

"Arnica montana 180605" by Bernd Haynold - Own work. 

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 

via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arnica_montana

_180605.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Arnica_montana_180605.jpg

The cream or gel  prepared from arnica 

has been used for centuries to alleviate the discomfort of muscle sprains, 

aches, pains and  bruising. 

All that and pretty flowers too.

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Redbud Trees

The Irresistible Nature of Redbud Trees in Late Summer

 I discovered something new about redbud trees.

The two redbuds we planted outside the garage

are in full leaf and hundreds of thin brown seed pods 

are hanging from the branches.

And I have been anticipating their dropping

and eventually showing up as tiny green seedlings in my flower beds--

which is how these two trees started out eleven years ago.

morguefile.com image uploaded by pippalou

But today I heard a flutter of titmice in the branches.

I thought maybe they were fledglings with a parent,

but after I watched them awhile, I realized they were adults.

And they were pecking at the slender seedpods, 

cracking the seeds, and eating them.

Soon they departed and a few chickadees flew in and did the same thing.

I guess you just can't keep a good thing quiet.

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Dragonflies

This summer, dragonflies have been very prevalent.

They fly all around the house, above the flowers, along the edge of the woods.

One spot they seem to like the best

is the very tip of some forged iron hitching posts 

we have placed among the flowers and by the fig tree.

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

I don't know why they favor that spot,

and though I ordinarily try to unravel such mysteries,

this one I won't.

Sometimes you just need to preserve the wonder of it all.

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Cosmos

Walking through the Cosmos

Actually, we walk by the cosmos at our house.

Most cosmos flowers grow quite tall,

 forming a colorful cloud of blossoms atop feathery foliage.

Our cosmos are much more delicate and low to the ground.

Probably because they are intermingling with the impatiens.

Impatiens easily outgrow most of their companions--

they've completely consumed our lime hosta for example--

and the cosmos are no exception.

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

But I like the way it looks with them all nestled together.

Cozy and pretty too.

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Wild Violets

Sometimes while hiking, I have come upon small wood violets

nestled in the detritus of the forest floor. 

Full of charm, they look lovely.

So one day when I was at my mom and dad's house,

I took a start of the violets

 they had growing in a small bed near the back door.

I brought the violets home, planted them,

and spent a couple of seasons nurturing them

until they were lush and full enough to shelter the nesting wrens.

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

I knew violets could be invasive, 

and I was aware some propagate by springing their seeds out into the air. 

Even so, I was pretty confident 

 they would not be able to throw them very far

from the window box on our wood deck.

Wrong.

avirginiashire.blogspot.com

The violets are coming up everywhere.

Yards away in our moss path,

yards the other way in a flower bed around the corner of the house.

Violets with a mind of their own.

It's a good thing I like them.

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Blue Geraniums

I really like blue flowers;

they are great for cooling your view on a hot August day.

And they offer a kind of tranquility 

that bright red, yellow, or orange flowers just don't attain.

There aren't many blue flowers in comparison

when it comes time for spring or fall planting though.

I seek them out each year, but ultimately I kill blue lobelia every spring, 

and ruin the summer's blue ageratum a few weeks later.

 But when I was reading about geraniums this week,

I discovered there are hybrid blue geraniums that will tolerate partial shade.

The most popular is the Johnson's blue although it seems a little like a fake geranium.

Here's a Johnson's blue geranium:

morguefile.com, image credit: Jusben

Here's an image of blue geraniums in the garden:

By Kor!An (Андрей Корзун) (Own work) 

[CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], 

via Wikimedia Commons

They remind me a little of bachelor's buttons.

I've read that what most Americans call geraniums are not true pelargoniums,

and surprisingly, the only true pelargonium has blue flowers. 

The red geranium is the imposter.

I guess that means the blue geranium is really "true blue" after all.

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Scented Geranium

It's not summer without a few fragrant herbs growing nearby.

I have a small sage plant, rosemary plant, basil, thyme, and mint.

But my recent post on the standard scarlet geranium

got me thinking about the other kinds of geraniums:

different colors (salmon, pink); different habits (trailing, upright);

and scented.

Scented Geranium (Pelargonium odoratissimum)

By Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada 

(Pelargonium odoratissimum)  [CC-BY-2.0

 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I love scented geraniums.

They have such a deep, aromatic perfume,

one that is supposed to deter mosquitoes.

I've never had them work in that regard,

but scented geraniums smell so wonderful, 

it's hard to be disappointed in them.

If you've never had one,

they are a delightful cross between an herb and a flower.

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