Thursday, August 27, 2009

A Slash of Blue

A slash of Blue

A slash of Blue --
A sweep of Gray --
Some scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky --
A little purple -- slipped between --
Some Ruby Trousers hurried on --
A Wave of Gold --
A Bank of Day --
This just makes out the Morning Sky.

~Emily Dickinson~

5 comments:

Shelly said...

What a gorgeous color!

Delphyne said...

Thanks, Shelly! It's funny how the color changes each year. This year, this bush wasn't quite as blue. The one in my yard was a reddish purple color, deeper than I remember. I think it has to do with the soil quality and maybe the minerals in it.

Shelly said...

Ooo, I know the answer to this one! It has to do with the acid/alkaline levels in the soil and if you play with those levels you can actually tweak the flowers to be the color you want. :) Try it and tell me what happens! :)

Delphyne said...

Shelly - smartie! I thought it was something like that! If I can figure out how to grow anything out here outside of my herbs, I'll try the acid/alkaline thing. These seasons are so different from the Bay Area weather and growing season - like almost 10 months!

Shelly said...

I think I read that in an organic gardening book once and it just stuck with me, because I had always wondered why there were so many different colors of flowers on the same kind of plant.

I am still getting used to the seasons too; I thought California had seasons, and it does, but they are just so mild and subtly changing ... so unlike Wisconsin where I honestly don't know how to dress most days! My neighbor has some sort of squash growing and it just now has huge blooms on it and I'm thinking it might be too late for it to bear fruit. It's so cold for August!