What Happened in My Yard

Yesterday stuff happened in my head, but stuff keeps happening in my yard, even though rain is scarce. Specifically, Sweet William has come back.

Some of it reseeded, bringing new, shorter plants, a few blooming daily, along with the spotty second round of trellis roses.  Some of it is coming back after 1) being eaten by rabbits 2) being sprinkled by the hose! These latter are still just foliage, and I hope they have time to bloom again before summer ends.

Fabulous pictures provided via Wikimedia, the red and white by Pilgab and hot pink Dianthus barbatus by Tomas Cekanavicius, with proper accent marks at link!

Today is tend-the-garden day at church in the morning and poetry workshop in the afternoon. Here is a recent poem from the August poem-a-day postcard project!

Sweet William 

Sweet William's coming back
in late August, despite the drought
and, earlier, the one downpour, with hail.
The tender pink blossoms,
the wild fevered red
like diaper rash, the white
splotched at the back of the red throat.
Somehow it will survive, defended
by a wire fence from rabbits.

I wrote this on the back of a postcard showing a row of babies potty-training on a row of chamber pots. Eurasian orphans, alas, circa 1950, from the Underwood Photo Archives, San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the fabulous Wikipedia tells us that Kate Middleton included Sweet William in her bridal bouquet.  Of course!