Garden surprises

I think I planted these unusual rusty orange lilies a couple of years ago, but this is the first I've seen them. Spikey. They look like stars with cah-razy eyelashes. K called them alien microphones. He swears they are listening in on us in order to know best how to conquer us.

Here's a longer view.

I didn't plant these. They come up all around this time of year. Thank you prior owner whose version of these gardens were one of the selling points of the house for me. She did a much better job of keeping up the gardens than I have so far. It's a learning process. The back pointy ones are Indian Paintbrush, I think. I have no idea what the wavy brushy one is, maybe another Indian Paintbrush type.

I am grateful everyday to be able to witness mother nature's surprises as the seasons change and unfold gradually or suddenly. In New England, I encountered a lot of sudden, but wonderfully anticipated surprises from the first few leaf changes through the sudden burst of flame colored forests. Or I'd gasp and nearly cry when rounding the bend of a wooded hilly street and one glowing yellow oak leapt out amongst the rust to purple maples. Then the sudden downpour day in October when all the trees are stripped bare and it seems the ground itself is on glistening wet fire. It was expected because I grew up and spent the first 25 years of my adulthood in New England. I sensed what came next by the change of the breeze, the level of ions in the air, even when it was a surprise just how it would manifest everytime.

Now that I live in southeastern Virginia, this seasonal transition is much longer, and so many flowers are still to come, each of them a brilliant new ache of beauty when I first see it. I have to stop myself from weeding, just to see what will come from that green shoot. I respect that weed, maybe find that it isn't one after all. I am constantly amazed to find the prior owner's variety of biennial plantings and their quick hellos. It's like having a visit from a forgotten friend, "Oh it's you!"

Slowly, after three years, maybe I'm looking forward to what's next here, too, rather than missing New England so much.