Printable Vintage Art: Garden with Flowers by Eliseo Meifrén y Roig

I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.
― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live In

Vintage painting of a lush garden filled with an abundantly fruiting peach tree and beautiful flowersn by Eliseo Meifrén y Roig (1857–1940); oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as a 12” x 10” @ 300 ppi JPEGs here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

My Photo Journal: A Walk on Michaelmas Day with Bushels of Michaelmas Daisies

The Michaelmas daisies, among dead weeds,
Bloom for St Michael's valorous deeds.

We had such a lovely walk this morning through fields bursting with Michaelmas daisies (Aster). The weather was glorious as Fall decided to cosplay Summer for Michaelmas Day. Do you think, perhaps, this is just capricious Fall's way to tease a warning about a potentially prolonged Winter ahead? In Irish folklore, clear weather on Michaelmas warns of a long winter: "Michaelmas Day be bright and clear there will be two Winters in the year." 2025's Farmer's Almanac has already predicted colder than mornal Winter temperatures for southern Ontario so I feel we are being given notice...

But who could possibly worry about Winter when golden light appears to have infused every nook and cranny of the landscape and the world seems to be caught up in a Summer fantasy?

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
― Robert Frost

Yes, the gold will doubtless fade into gray but for now, surely, surely, we can simply bask in the bold and brawny sun-soaked day?

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My Photo Journal: Early Fall in My Garden (2025)

Is not this a true autumn day?
Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise.
The birds are consulting about their migrations,
the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay,
and begin to strew the ground,
that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air,
while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit.
Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
― George Eliot

With the onset of cooler weather, garden tasks turn to include the splitting and transplanting of perennials. Here, I've managed to divide several large clumps of Echinacea ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ (see my picture above). ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ was introduced by Kieft-Pro Seeds in 2012. It is a well-branched, sturdy coneflower that won the 2013 AAS (All-America Selections®) award and Europe's FleuroSelect Gold Medal award for garden performance. It flowers the first year in a wide range of bloom colors, including purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, cream or white ray flowers with a brown cone. It grows 2 to 2.5 feet tall and 1 to 2 feet wide [Source: Missouri Botanical Garden]. I do have many other varieties of coneflowers in my garden including ‘Magnus,’‘Fragrant Angel,’‘Ruby Giant,’‘White Swan’ and ‘Green Twister.’ Next year, I intend to add ‘Primadonna Deep Rose’ and ‘Starlight.’

In the process of planting and generally cleaning up my garden beds, lo and behold, I was stunned and thrilled to find a solitary lily still blooming late into the year (see photo below)! This is by far the latest I have seen any of my lilies bloom. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce ‘Miss Feya’. Lilium Miss Feya has large rosy red flowers with a white edge and a speckling of black dots. The flowers are fragrant and measure 3-6“ on stems that stand 6 to 8 feet tall. After it is established it will produce multiple stems with a mass of blooms in late July and early August. Miss Feya is an Orienpet hybrid, a cross between an Oriental lily and a Trumpet lily which combines the tall, strong stems of the Trumpets with the fragrance and shape of the Oriental lilies. These hybrids have an increased ability to withstand late spring frosts as well as hot summer days [Source: Chicago Botanical Garden]. Since this is a 1st-year plant for me (I planted 3 bulbs earlier this spring, and this was the only bulb that flowered), the stem is still very short, and produced only this single flower. I will wait eagerly to see what happens with this particular variety next year.

Have you made any joyful or unexpected discoveries in your early autumn garden? Feel free to drop a comment below if you would like to share. Meanwhile, I hope you are experiencing thus:

I was drinking in the surroundings:
air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers
and greens in every lush shade imaginable
offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.
― Wendy Delsol

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