So this is what is Left....

 "Oh the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock up to rock,all the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy! "
-Robert Browning ( From Saul)


 So this is what is left of my garden.....Three things still thrive: Fuchsias, Begonias and Sunflowers. And a lot of dirt.

 Everything else is dying out.   But the sunflowers are 14 ft high. At least. There's comfort in that. They are huge. Like Jack and the beanstalk.

Most of my pots look like this now. Gone. Dead. Sort of. Sticks.Definitely.

 Fuchsias I planted  in a hurry in the spring.  They are what's left.

 Fuchsias were discovered by a monk/botantist, named Charles Plummer. He brought them back from the Caribbean.The colour fuchsia was created by a French chemist  called Francois-Emmanuel Verguin, in 1859. But then there was some sort of war in Italy and the name was changed to magenta. Some battle or other.

I learned this week that Fuchsias pods can be edible. Though I don't  think I would chance eating them. Some are not. Some are good in teas. I have no idea which. I wonder if Leonhart Fuchs who named them in the 16th century tried to eat them.

 With about 110 species of fuchsias  you would be making a lot of tea.

 So while the fuchsias bloom and bloom, sweet peas are on their way out.

 They don't smell as sweet and  today I only got a few for my bucket.

 Whereas most of July I filled two buckets a day, or thereabouts, with sweet peas.

 "We are living in a world of beauty, We are the heirs of wonderful treasures from the past. If only we desire them enough. " 
                              -Lorado Taft ( 1860-1936)

 You see those great big tall things waving up in the air. Those are my sunflowers. They grew so high, that when the neighbour launched his drone the other day, the sunflower blocked its way. Battle of the sunflower vs. drone. The sunflower won.

I

 These are porch days.

Days to roll about on the steps.

 Days to snooze.

 And stretchhhhhhh.

In these last few weeks of August.

 Time to admire the last sunflowers  and stand on Moai.

 Listen to the crickets chirping. Hiding in the last sweet pea patch.

 And look at all the empty pots littering the benches. Dirt flung here and there. While  bees potter back and forth to the last flowers.

 "If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic more starry,more immortal--that is your success." -Thoreau