Flower Faces Under Summer Sun

The solstice has come and gone. Now all flowers are summer flowers, including the spring ones that linger. In that category I would place this white false indigo that sprang up in a place it was not planted, blooming in a season it wasn’t intended for. How cheeky it looks in that stand of goldenrod.

I’m pretty sure it is saying “Nanny nanny booboo” to me because I tried so hard to get BLUE false indigo started. Really, the white indigo is very pretty, as is this bank of airy whites beyond the front steps where I once kept a tidy bed of red impatiens. That was until the deer ate it like strawberry shortcake.

This week I drove Interstates #64 and #81, with frequent glances toward the side of the highway, and the wildflowers there. What a delight to pass tangles of riotous sweet peas, a swag of orange trumpet vine, and blue lupines standing at attention in a median valley! Peachy day lilies, ruddy butterfly weed, and ethereal blue chicory added pizazz to the sweep of grass on the shoulder. Along the way there were tall mullein plants with their gray-green leaves and yellow blossoms. Now and then I glimpsed a yucca’s sharp leaves and large white bells. The pink and green of crown vetch sprawled over slopes. Daisies, coreopsis, and coneflowers dotted the hillsides.

I drove safely and didn’t take photos, but here are the faces of a few of the front yard wildflowers that were waiting for me when I got home:

Coneflowers

Daisy fleabane

Dark-eyed Helen

Feverfew

Blanket flower or gaillardia

And many, many more…what a beautiful season is summer, at home and on the road!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Yoder Ackerman is a writer and gardener in Newport News, Virginia. Both her writing and her gardening are enhanced by tending a century-old family farmhouse and eight grandchildren that come and go. You can email Susan at [email protected].