The end of July is the time of year when I begin to question the gardener’s conceit that plant life can be arranged and ordered to serve a personal aesthetic. I have seen gardens where this appears to be the case, but they are the illusions of master gardeners working in the privileged realms of botanical sorcery.  As this fevered July expires in the sere arms of August, our mortal gardens have taken on a feral look of desperation as purslane serpents coil at their feet, and beetles batter their blossomed brows.

We go through the motions of weeding, watering, trimming up the tattered trailers of plants bent on mischief, but Kate and I are already telling each other that we’ll do better next year. There is an air of surrender in our work. But in surrendering ourselves to a hot summer’s cruel indifference to our efforts to bring some refinement to our largely untamed yard, we have found some consolation on the wild side.

Without the benefit of gardeners – master, or otherwise – the summer scene has arranged and ordered itself into beautiful displays of wildflowers: red and white clovers, roadside chicory and, outdoing everything else, … Queen Anne’s Lace.