Taking a break

I have been contemplating taking a break from blogging ever since the spring season began and have now decided to go ahead and do so. There's too much to do and too little time to do it, and something had to give.

Friday Flowers

Geranium with no name and a really nice purple color.

Seedling of Geranium 'Brookside'

Transylvanian Sage

Rosa 'Nasturana'

Penstemon seedling; one of the parents is Smooth or
Foxglove Beardtongue and the other may be P. tenuis.

The bees' antics were amusing to watch. They work so hard.

The prairie rose (R. setigera) is in bloom. It's a monster.

Happy Friday. Today and tomorrow are going to be good days to hide in the air conditioning.

June Muse Day and a question of identity

Design is on my mind all of the time as I work and re-work the garden. To be perfectly honest, mostly I mostly think about the futility of it, unless one has a small garden or a small crew. Many's the time I've sketched a plan, only to have the result to not resemble the plan in the slightest. I don't really mess with plans or sketches anymore. The garden changes every year anyway. Gardens are only temporary works of art which nature and time are always trying to erase.

So for Muse Day I offer this bit of Sylvia Plath's poem "Totem". I will not quote the entire poem, as it's just too gruesome for my purposes. I'm not a big fan of Sylvia Plath's work -- I read one of her biographies with more interest than her poems and her novel The Bell Jar -- but this bit of her poem fits my mood lately.

There is no terminus, only suitcases

Out of which the same self unfolds like a suit
Bald and shiny, with pockets of wishes,

Notions and tickets, short circuits and folding mirrors.

Kind of depressing, huh. This poem mostly comes to mind when I look at the sunny perennial areas. If I left it alone for five years there'd be a small forest of red maples, sweet gums, pine trees, groundsel trees, Chinese privet, Japanese honeysuckle, and greenbriar. In the end the big trees would win and even the Asian invasives would be held back to the edges.

Now for the question of identity. When Gail sent me PPPP ("Practically
Perfect Pink Phlox" the Phlox pilosa from Gail's garden clay and
limestone) I didn't label it, although I should have. But here is this phlox

planted with Penstemon X.

Is this really PPPP, or something else? It's such a bright pink.

I believe this is Ozark Phlox, Phlox pilosa ssp. ozarkana,
which has hairy stems, fuzzier than that of the bright pink phlox.

Also for comparison, this is Smooth Phlox, Phlox glaberrima, which has smooth shiny leaves.

So what do you think? Is the first phlox something other than PPPP?