Sun Follows Lee

Wisdom is reported to accompany age.  Perhaps age forces us to work smarter because we have a new found difficulty working harder.  Developing planting areas in our former pasture used to start with cutting out and removing sod blocks.  That is strenuous work.  We have recently discovered that grass clippings and time will kill the sod in place.  Raking grass clippings is also hard work.  Today brought the arrival here of a lawn sweeper.  Sweeping clippings is more like play than work.  With all of the recent rains the grass is growing at an alarming rate making abundant hay.  Today also featured brief periods of sunshine.  Storm aftermath makes travel impossible in three directions as the roads are simply gone in places.  We are here, so we might as well rake hay.

Cardinal flower, lobelia cardinalis, is a favorite here.  This plant survived without our intervention.  Its four stalks show that we did not divide this second year plant.  Now each stalk is making up to six daughter plants.  Crowded does not begin to describe the situation here.  Experience has taught us that none of these plants will survive winter if we divide them now.  As winter approaches we will loosely cover this cluster with the dead stalks.  Division will wait until early spring.  Without intervention these daughter plants will crowd each other out with none surviving.
 

Hardy chrysanthemum, Clara Curtis, looks great next to the stone wall.  Its appearance now is a not so subtle announcement that we are in the third season of the year.  A single purchased plant has undergone countless divisions.  We have them widely planted hoping that some will see spring.  These are indeed a treasure.