Taking a Deep Breath

There’s a moment each summer, usually in late June, when my garden seems to pause. The exuberant display of early summer is winding down. The Amsonia and the peonies have finished blooming. The early species daylily, Hemerocallis flava, has opened it’s last flower. Baptisia australis is exchanging its indigo flowers for pea-like seed pods, and Allium ‘Globemaster’ is well along in its transformation from flower head to seed head. The Geranium x cantabrigiense varieties are past the peak of their bloom and open fewer flowers each day. And, of the siberian irises that are the stars of my garden in early summer, only the late-blooming cultivar ‘Yankee Doodle Boy’ still has flowers.

It’s not that nothing is in bloom. Many varieties of hardy geranium are full of flowers, as are the tradescantias. Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) still sports frothy chartreuse plumes. The Clematis ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ has opened her first flowers on the fence, and Spirea japonica ‘Magic Carpet’ is blooming.

But there’s less happening now than a week or two ago, and far less than what is to come. It is as though the garden is taking a deep breath, gathering its energies in preparation for the grand exhalation of beauty and bounty that is high summer.

This is a moment of sublime anticipation. It’s not the anticipation of Carly Simon’s song, where you forget to enjoy what’s happening today because you are so busy thinking about what will happen tomorrow. This is more like Winnie the Pooh’s moment before you begin eating the honey.

As I walk around the garden each morning, I am exquisitely aware of the unfolding drama. In the deck border, the spires of astilbe and goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicius) are about to burst into bloom; and in the blue and yellow border, the delphinium are stretching out their inflorescences to make the individual buds visible. The coreopsis and heliopsis plants are covered with flower buds. All over the garden, hostas are putting up flowers, and each day I count more and more flower scapes on the dozens of daylily varieties that will soon be the stars of the show.

Take a deep breath. We’re about to begin eating the honey!