We have had some unsettling weather this past week. Ninety four degree temperatures and Mississippi Delta humidity for three days followed by three days of cold rain that has battered plants and flowers into the mud. And yesterday, while sitting at my dining room table, I looked out the door into the dooryard to see a teenage woodchuck on the top step not eight inches from the glass chewing down my African Mallow.
Weeds are everywhere. The Day of the Dead marigold flowers are saturated with wet, and stems have broken and toppled. Still, I heard the Veery singing this morning.
Yesterday between the rain bands I took pictures of a flower bed not too disheveled. Its colors are still bright, and I think because the blooms are delicate and not planted in lumpy masses like bedding plants, it has an gracefulness despite its loud oranges an reds. Enough green and bright colors glow like embers, and there is no vulgarity in them-
French marigolds, salvia “Roman Red”, and the Tropical Butterfly weeds’ In the foreground is agastache “Poquillo”. The cannas are “Intrigue” and “Pacific Beauty”.
More salvias. The blue is salvia farinacea, the large coral colored sage is “Ember’s Wish”.
Gardening On Granite 