By Barbara Falconer Newhall
Jerome, that famously abstemious fourth- and fifth-century scholar and saint, is said to have kept a human skull on his desk to remind him of his mortality.
Those of us with gardens don’t need a skull. We’ve got stuff dying on us every day.
Last week I had pansies, wind poppies, camellias and star magnolias strutting their stuff in my sunny front yard. Today a heavy rain blasted through our canyon, and last week’s hopefuls were pounded back into the ground by the weight of all that water.
The elegant wind poppies whose pictures I posted last week? They’re face down on a rock.
Photos by Barbara Falconer Newhall
More notes from Jillian:
The wind poppies will probably reseed. It’s time for clarkia and baby blue eyes and tidy tips and more, especially clarkia, which blooms for a long time. Hope your blue-eyed grass is flowering!
I’ll post some pics at http://www.garden-artisan.com/ — of a meadow I planted in Livermore that is full of blooming flowers including wind poppies which are still going.
Jillian says the pretty, bell-shaped flower is Clarkia, aka Farewell to Spring. Some of the flowers popped back up, but two glorious Wind Poppies are goners.