Shady wild patches and garden beds refresh all along all the ways to errands around this neighborhood.

Today's weather forecast warns of gusts up to 40 mph beginning near noon and lasting though dusk, but now the air is mild and calm, so I am challenged, imagining even breezes.

Anyway, I hope the strong winds will blow in, shake up this situation and stay longer, energizing my dreams unpredictably all night.

Maples shade a weedy, mini-woods!

While the temperature soars and humidity climbs, my colleague the Tortoise Cat and I work and bask in this shady front yard, where I cleared garlic mustard the contractors' herbicide failed to kill, because the owners here want this tasty, medicinal plant eradicated. These elders usually sleep past noon, but when they rise I'll fix breakfast -- oatmeal, every day, even on the hottest, muggiest days.

Though this gig has lasted far longer than we expected, the Tortoise Cat, usually outgoing, has remained aloof from these folks. But their yards full of yummy plants, scurrying critters and winged harassing birds she likes lots, I know.

What a fun riot!

Peony (or peonious?) overflow in pink, white and fuchsia is happening on this dead-end block now. Occasionally in the past, I've heard folks express dislike or even hatred for peonies, perhaps because they are projecting repressed personality traits onto these early, exhuberant upstart flowers that flaunt so blatently, then fall apart so sloppily, so soon.

Coincidentally and oblivioulsly across the parking lot, yellow and red roses, strictly confined to a walled-off garden bed, are blooming brightly and fading rapidly.

This property presents a self-educational project: learning which plants are "native" and which -- if any -- are (termed) invasive or "noxious" in south-central Wisconsin. I've been instructed to let the contractor they hired deal with the yard.

But it appears that company hasn't been hired to do much, so the property looks unkempt -- to me, so far.

If I got to know these plants better, achieved a scientific understanding of how and why they are growing together around here, where many yards feature weeds allowed to propagate wildly, maybe I could fully appreciate the creative chaos of these scenes.

This afternoon I was invited to pull weeds in the gardens of the condo development I stroll through daily -- whenever (if ever) a sudden urge hits. A walkway I frequent as a shortcut leads through the complex, but no street.

Energizing roses cheered me today!

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.