And on the fifth day of vacation…

The bumblebees waited, making lazy and noisy circuits of the front porch.

I brought in Homestead verbena, already a sprawl of outrageous purple flowers. Miss Huff lantana, a smallish perennial with a deceptively Old South name that will put out hot orange and golden flowers, sometimes with a hint of blush, eventually filling up the landscape even in the hottest of summers, as deceptively demur Southern belles will sometimes do. For spice, fluorescent pink ice plant, which folds its gaudy flowers every night and flings them open again every morning.

And out of sheer recklessness, a nice-sized lilac bush whose fragrance will leap to compete with a nearby magnolia, which has more than a dozen fat buds lush with promise.

After they were all in the ground, I set right the leggy rose bushes that had bent double in a recent storm. To show their appreciation, a dozen buds opened this morning, watercolor red.

The verbena was barely in the ground when the bumblebees gathered ’round. By late morning, the butterflies had come – one very chic in black with iridescent blue trim, a shy one in white, others in orange and yellow to show solidarity with Miss Huff. Coming in with authority, a plump chickadee in formal-wear perched high in the five-gallon maple that has already leafed out in rich green.

Sometimes when I garden, I understand why God went on for days. Who would want to stop? Let there be this…let there be that…and watch the magic that follows.

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