WOW! I've never seen anything like that! Dreamed of it maybe, but never actually
seen it!
*wants a
wisteria* *googles it*
...
15 years to flower?! D; Lucky you!!
...can it be transplanted, perhaps?
*ebay* *
ITCAN!* *wishlist*
Today I am raving morning-glories!
This summer I was hoping to also have
Hanging-Gardens-of-Babylon on my front porch, and went with this previously successful monster, nasturtium. A reckless beauty, it swallows its host:
That mailbox's had a crook in its neck since. Nasturtium is so red my camera could never render it. It's practically glowing:
It was so successful there, that I was very surprised this season when only one sprouted, and itself never got beyond a foot tall. Luckily, I back-up planned by planting some other vines as well. Moonflower:
which did sprout!
But only blooms at night. By 8am, the earliest I normally play Ansel Eos, they're all closed. That's it, a one day showing:
The giant morning glory
show until about
noon
and again just one or two at a time. If I want to see many at once, I have to venture down
to where it grows wild. I find it every summer beside this hay field,
growing around the posts, where it's always a pleasure,
until the fall baling... ...where it's always a stunned pause...
Maybe the farmer came late in the day and couldn't see it, when the flower was closed,
It's fall. It's an annual. This is part of their story. They come back... Hey, a survivor!!
I was so bummed about those wasted glories, that on the return I followed an impulse to head up an alternate path along the main road, a highway, and avoid another confrontation with the field. I had forgotten how distressingly loud it is to walk beside mounts charging past one tile away. When one rang its holiday bell, a ZONNNNK, in passing, I immediately turned onto an even less traveled path. It was instantly quieter, almost on auto-pilot, until a concerned cu sidhe on the approach, possibly unleashed, politely warned me I had 10 steps to change my destiny. So, I strayed again, for the third time, into the alley of an old commerce district. I nearly
never, ever go this way...
HA!! I wandered right to the one thing I wanted to see most, and didn't realize I was asking for,
those
wasted glories - alive! I stand there stunned. I can't believe something that looks like this,
is surrounded by discards and not loveliness. It's humbling. It's like coming upon Venus, dethroned, but undaunted. Nature can rock a dress made out of anything.
Unlike the white and blue siblings, the violet variety seems to handle sunlight well. The centers glow, like eyes. It's hard not to get enchanted once the gaze is caught. I imagine what it's like to be a bug in the city, hovering in the doldrums of everyday grey; dirt, stone, monotone with an eye set on roam...
...Wham! Like a porthole:
I come back a month later, hopeful it remained,
to gather the seeds,
I wonder if anyone is at a window watching, wondering what I am up to tiptoeing around the trash again,
stuffing my pockets with bits of nothing,
as if a catburglar looting gold from a church.
Between this violet survivor and those exploding wisteria, next season is SO ON!
I get back home, pockets full, and notice a wiggling black hole in that one white eye... OH! A BEE! I rush over:
Hmm. Its behavior seems... odd? Each time it escapes, it turns back in for more... like... it is drunk? Its footwork becomes a scramble...
Oh no! It just...
fell?! Bees don't fall! What! That was a 5ft drop! I hope it's ok! *I drop down*
It rubs its head, wobbles, then saunters down the branch. It rolls off onto the grass, does a few flips, gives up and tries climbing, no, walking, possibly hovering, definitely dazed, probably irritated. I slowed this down:
Each time it tries to take off it loses power, like a helicopter piloted by a monkey. I spend a lot of time with carpenter bees in the marigolds. They don't act this way... o.O
After THAT somersault I decide it might not be a good idea to be around when it snaps out of it. Sure is strange... wonder why it's acting like --- OH NO! Morningglories are NIGHTSHADES! What have I done! I wanted this big not-indigenous-at-that-size flower, and personally introduced a vampire on my little unknowing friend!
Another web, it seems, those glowing eyes of October. It enchants with this high contrast seemingly pure glowing white center, like a siren of sight, and then intoxicates the willing victim with a gift it can't refuse, and can only want more of. Each time that bee escaped, it went right back in, its limbs twitching spasmically like Pooh bear in a honey hutch. Would those effects be temporary, or permanent? If it survives, would it rush in again?
I head to the back to scatter the new glory seed. I know just the tree. Base of the hill gets the most moisture, west edge of treeline has the longest morning shadow, plenty of afternoon sunlight and no competition. I get there...
and it's already here! Haha xD Instantaneous gratification! I love this planet,
every pixel of it! I hope you enjoyed Eos' longest post ever, and plant morning glories!
,'- Thank you, Timthree! ❂
