#Fall Flowers

[indigrassy]

Fuzzy cosmos

[geopsych]

Rainbow meadow, September 2018.

[assassin1513]

🌾🍁🌾Autumn Flowers🌾🍁🌾

[halloween-sweets]

[shelovesplants]

Dabs and Daisy's 💛🌼🍯💨

[underthemexicansun]

[yes-itisautumn]

[autumns-glory]

[lilybug-02]

2024 Fall Flowers

I remember hearing the other day that Texas Autumn’s are really just a second spring. The leaves don’t change here much, but the weather is very nice compared to the sweltering hot of summer.

[thoughtartistry]

[pointandshooter]

photo: David Castenson

[indigrassy]

Mum-a-mia here I go again

[geopsych]

Witch hazel in bloom. 💛

[halloween-sweets]

[adventuresofalgy]

Exploring a wee bit further afield, after the storm had passed, Algy was reminded just how resilient many plants were in this rugged landscape that was vigoroulsy swept by the wind as frequently as humans swept their floors – or probably a great deal more often, if he considered the case of certain human beings of his acquaintance… 😄

Algy knew that the rough moorland grasses took almost everything the weather could throw at them in their stride, regardless of the season, but here and there a few brave flowers could still be found, poking up through the windswept vegetation, although it was now late October. And he was genuinely surprised to discover a clump of heather still in bloom… Many of its flowers had long since faded, of course, but there were quite a few fresh new bells among them. That was indeed an unexpected delight, and so Algy settled down upon the soft grasses, with his back to the stiff breeze which was still blowing his hair feathers into his eyes, and contemplated what must surely now be the last of the heather for this year.

This particular plant, whose success was no doubt largely owing to the fact that it clung very close to the ground, could hardly be said to be "high waving heather" – and if it had been, the flowers would almost certainly have been destroyed in the recent stormy blasts – but it nevertheless reminded Algy of one of his favourite poems about a moorland environment:

High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending, Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars, Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending, Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending, Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending, Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars. All down the mountain sides wild forests lending One mighty voice to the life-giving wind, Rivers their banks in their jubilee rending, Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending, Wider and deeper their waters extending, Leaving a desolate desert behind. Shining and lowering and swelling and dying, Changing forever from midnight to noon; Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing, Shadows on shadows advancing and flying, Lighning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying, Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.

[Algy is quoting the poem High waving heather by the early 19th century English writer Emily Brontë.]

[aisling-saoirse]

Witch Hazel Mass Bloom, Hedden Park, NJ - October 30th 2024