The Turn of a Season

Summer is definitely coming to an end. No need to keep checking the 10-days forecast's high temperature to assure this. Just look around the yards and pastures. They are remitting those signals clear and loud. This is a photoessay on the turn of summer season from mother nature herself posted in four parts (click on each title or see four following posts below).

The Turn of a Season

Tender New Growth
Wild Flowers Reblooming
Volunteer Seedlings
Signals from the Grasses

Signals from the Grasses

This part 4 of 4 of The Turn of a Season photoessay.

Warm-season grasses thrive in the heat and then they flower and set seed in late summer and fall.

Sedges have edges and rushes are round

Grasses are hollow and rush all around

-1-

This wet-feet loving grass

are having flowers.

One of my favorite grass flowers.

-2-

This form of grass flower is called raceme,

attached to the main axis

by such a thin stem.

The arrangement reminds me of

Heliconia flower.

-3-

Cluster of grass flower

is called grass inflorescence

and this is the spike type

where flowers are directly

attached to main axis.

-4-

Another spike type inflorescence.

-5-

Grass inflorescence that has branches

and called panicle.

And there's many more

I am still waiting on to bloom.

My favorite maroon grass flowers

and ever so faintly pink grass

are yet to be seen.

I'll keep watching.

Volunteer Seedlings

This is part 3 of 4 of The Turn of a Season photoessay.

Under the oak tree they volunteer to grow and the mother plant looks even better.

-1-

Polka Dot plant start gaining its color back

after looking so drearily dull

in the hottest days of summer.

They all have been moved

from the other side of oak tree

to save them from burning.

There is even a seedling now coming up

not too far from the mother plant!

-2-

Periwinkle blooming.

This is a volunteer from last year's seeds.

-3-

I thought I have lost this Oxalis many times,

but despite its sad look it's been surviving

not only from weather

but also critters' footsteps

for a couple of years here.

(Purchased from Bruce Miller).

Wild Flowers Reblooming

This is part 2 of 4 of The Turn of a Season photoessay.

I have been noticing that the wild flowers that blooms in spring start blooming again this time of year. These are some of the most prominent ones.

-1-

This hot-chili-pepper red wild flower

keeps stealing our attention

wherever and whenever it blooms.

It loves shady spots.

-2-

These tiny white flowers starts sprouting.

In the past they could make a pasture all white.

-3-

It's not flower, but the appearance

of American Beauty berries is also a sign of

upcoming cooler days.

-4-

Pastel pink wild flowers. How sweet!

-5-

Aster-like wild flowers

thriving in shady spots.

-6-

Creamy white clover-like flowers

of a wild vine.

-7-

Pink flowers with yellow stamen

found on a fence line by the catfish pond.

-8-

This is the first time

I notice this wild flower.

It looks like pea flower

and grows along a fence line

by the catfish pond.

-9-

Honey suckle is back in business!

It blooms in spring

and its appearance in this time of year

reinforces that summer is

coming to an end.

(CLICK HERE to see my previous posting)

Tender New Growth

This is part 1 of 4 of The Turn of a Season photoessay.

Mature burnt-marked leaves and browned dead-looking limbs coexist with tender new growth.

-1-

Angel's Wing begonia green mature leaves

with burnt marks on their tips

coexist with reddish tender new leaves.

Jagged and red-edged

young Angel's Wing foliage.

Another variety of Angel's Wing begonia

with mature burnt foliage

coexisting with tender green new leaf.

A leafless stem of Angel's Wing begonia

is showing growing tips

at the top and along the stem.

They will be new fresh foliages.

-2-

Lime green, new growth frond of fern

above the old darker fronds.

-3-

Schefflera,

a tropical foliage plant,

is having new sets of leaf.

-4-

Fresh green tips coming out of both

green and brown dry-looking stems

of a variegated hydrangea.

New fresh foliage at the base

of variegated hydrangea.

-5-

A small baby Elephant's Ear Illustris

sprouting and yet to show

its dark color.

A Six -Pointers

A "six-pointers" beetle on a spent zinnia bloom.

Wrapped

A spider with its prey wrapped for supper later.

Weaving Joseph's Coat

Our two Joseph's Coat climbing roses are growing. Their limbs are getting longer and start falling on the ground. We had some kind of garden decor to support them, but they were too small now. So we replace them with new wooden trellises and weave Joseph's Coat through. Now they look nice and perk up, no more falling limbs on the ground. They are proudly guarding mandevilla in the middle.

Joseph's Coat's bloom and bud

woven through wooden trellis.

Mandevilla bloom,

the first since the heat wave

of summer dies down.

Climbing rose Pinata in the pasture

is also blossoming.

Note how many flower buds it has.